Extradimensional Assistance
by President John Henry Eden
Summary: Commander Shepard found himself in command of six alien hunters from a neighboring parallel universe. Now, he has the new responsibility of trying to keep the XCOM operatives in his squad from tearing the Normandy crew apart with either rampant xenophobia, or just by plain old poor communication skills. Starts from ME2's Freedom's Progress. Ends in Collector Base? Not necessarily.
1. I: Hello, Commander

_A/N: I've just recently finished playing the _Mass Effect_ franchise for the first time last week, and I thought, 'Hey, this is some really good science fiction stuff'. My mind then shifted to the _other_ science fiction game I've been playing last month, in Classic Ironman mode, and thought 'Hey, wouldn't it be really cool if I combined these sci-fi goodness into one really neat package, starting with _Mass Effect 2_?'  
_

_And that's how this fic is born._

_Of course, here's the mandatory, most important Commander Shepard details: (note: I'm shocked. _shocked_, at how common a male Shepard with a Colonist+War Hero background is in fanfictions, and how common the first name 'John' is too. In an effort to be different, I changed some details of Shepard's background significantly, but I hope it doesn't ruin the story)_

_First Name: Andrei_

_Background: Colonist, War Hero_

_Class: Infiltrator (a little bit of a mix between the Sniper and Spy class from TF2, with some tech skills thrown in)._

_Who did he save on Virmire?: Ashley (Kaidan is just too darned_ average,_ Ash makes for a better soldier)._

_Did he save the Council?: He did. Such a loyal Spectre he is._

_Who did he put in the Council to represent humans?: Anderson, of course._

_Did Ashley or Liara go up to his cabin before Ilos for a cuddle?: Nope, he's a little too busy checking over his equipment and updating his insurance._

_Does he have some notable personality quirks?: Yes, he used to hate batarians, but he tries to be better. He also likes freezing temperatures and wintry environments. He perceives himself as something of a big game hunter, which he (sort of) was back in Mindoir._

_Well, there you have it. Enjoy._

* * *

**Extradimensional Assistance**

**Chapter I: Hello, Commander**

* * *

**En-Route to Triton Station, March 29th, 2185, 17:51 Terran Coordinated Universal Time**

He idly fiddled with the safety lock of his sniper rifle as he opened his mouth to talk. "Could you tell me more about this…" He searched his mind for the two words he was looking for, observing his two 'friends' all the while. "…'Lazarus Project', of yours?"

She was quite wary of answering the commander's question, but yet she soldiered on, knowing well that earning his trust would be vital to her group's ultimate goal. "The Lazarus Project; an exorbitant venture that took two years and four billion credits to bring a single soldier back from the grip of death, formulated by a human-survivalist organization infamously known as Cerberus."

The former Systems Alliance Commander Andrei Shepard was reminded once again as to whom he owes his life. "Yeah, I get it. While we're busy fighting our way out of the station, your partner over there told me who you are already." The commander uneasily shifted on his shuttle seat, more than a little puzzled as to why Cerberus bothered to revive an enemy soldier.

Cerberus Operative Miranda Lawson spared an annoyed glare at her partner, Jacob Taylor. The dark-skinned former Alliance Marine tried hard not to flinch under her withering stare. "I think he deserves to know." He squeaked out. "After all, we're supposed to be stuck with him, right?"

Miranda ignored Jacob and shifted her attention back to Shepard. "Look, I know you have several questions that you're itching to ask, but before you do, I'll have to conduct a memory test to see if the project could be considered a success or not."

"Is this really necessary, Miranda?" Jacob carefully asked. "Way I saw Shepard fight, the project was more than a success."

Miranda's answer was swift. "Bloody hell it is. Normally, a team of scientists should conduct numerous different tests on the commander for weeks on end – not to mention a few months of physiotherapy, mental conditioning and extensive combat training. But since we don't have that option anymore, this'll have to suffice."

Shepard wasn't sure himself if his personality and his memories remained intact after his brush with death, so he decided to get the test over and done with. "Alright then, lay it on me."

"Right." The operative took a lungful of recycled air as she reviewed Shepard's background from a datapad. "You were born on the colony of Mindoir. You were raised mostly by your Russian grandfather, who hunted large game for a living; which is where you've acquired your skills as an expert marksman and tracker. Unfortunately, you were right there when your whole family, your grandfather included, was massacred by batarian slavers in 2170. Alliance records state that you and your grandfather provided sniper support for the marines tasked with defending the colony, which resulted in the old man's death after he was singled out by another enemy sniper. Is that right?"

Shepard instantly remembered. He would never forget the dreadful day that turned his idyllic, peaceful existence into an unrecognizable mess of a life.

After a prolonged silence, he mustered enough strength to talk. "…That's right; I remember using my old hunting rifle to defend my family's estate from the balcony. For several hours, I shot quite a few of them before a squad of marines arrived to relieve me. I was sixteen back then, and I was really scared during the whole thing. In fact, I was so terrified, that more than once did my shaking hands mess up my aim. But by the end of the day, I wasn't scared anymore. I've got nowhere else to come back to, so I enlisted with the marines the first opportunity I've got." The commander paused; taking a sharp breath before his features gradually adopted a gloomy expression. "…My _dedushka_, he died well. He probably couldn't have asked for a better way to go than passing away in his sleep. He always hated picturing himself that."

Jacob was impressed, yet found himself troubled at Shepard's words. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry, commander. I know what it's like to lose someone you looked up to, but that's nothing compared to losing your whole family as well."

The commander chuckled quietly to himself to shake his mind away from his past, which he already had partial success in moving on. "It's okay, Taylor. That happened a long time ago, and unless you're actually the one who killed my family, you've got nothing to apologize about."

Jacob did a half-smile, but the memories of his own father disappearing still lingered on his mind. "I doubt that I'd be engaging in piracy while I'm still in my teens; too busy thinking about getting laid to think about those sorts of things."

"Uh-huh. On the other hand, I was too busy running away from giant boar-mammoth-bear things while my grandfather, who was supposed to shoot the damn thing, sits back with a bottle of _wodka_ and laughs at me." The two former soldiers shared a short-lived chuckle, only stopping when the other occupant of the shuttle slapped the back of Jacob's head.

"Are you two quite done?" Miranda interposed. "I've still got a few more questions for Shepard, and we don't have much time before we receive our first objective from the Illusive Man."

Shepard was getting rather tired of Miranda's attitude, but he kept himself from doing anything rash. After all, he has quite a lot of questions for Cerberus' leader. "Make it quick, then."

Before continuing, Miranda stared Jacob down again. "Fairly early in your military career, you were on shore leave in the colony of Elysium in 2176, which was… regrettably, chosen as the site of an invasion by a collection of mercenaries and pirates. You rallied your fellow marines into repulsing the enemy force until allied reinforcements arrived. You were hailed as a hero on that day, dubbed as the 'White Death', by Alliance propagandists, and you've earned yourself the Star of Terra; the highest honor a soldier could achieve in the Alliance military. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, that's true, but not in the way that I remembered it." Inwardly, Shepard frowned. The Alliance sure loved to sugar-coat the harsh realities of war. "When I saw batarians among the turians, I lost control of myself. I ignored how many of them are there, or how much of my own blood and my fellow soldiers I've lost." The commander's tone was solemn, as if recalling his actions distressed him. "I just mindlessly rushed in and killed them in the most violent ways my mind could ever come up with. My thoughts were so consumed by hatred and bloodlust that I didn't even notice that the rest of my comrades were cheering and praising me on as I killed..." Shepard heaved a mournful sigh. "They shouldn't have. They should've knocked me on the head and hauled my ass back to safety; I was breaking formation after all, not mention that I _am_ a designated marksman; I'm supposed to be as far away from the enemy as possible, not engage them in melee. And after the attack, they gave me medals and called me a hero. In other circumstances, they would've court-martialed me for insubordination called me a lunatic."

Miranda hummed and droned as she listened to Shepard's account of the Skyllian Blitz, seemingly aloof and uninterested, which was unsurprising. After he concluded his story, she seemed to be satisfied. "Why did they choose your title of 'White Death', anyway? Last I've checked, there are no less than a couple of thousand Terminus pirates with that moniker."

Shepard shrugged. "To be honest, I don't really know. Maybe it's because I always wore the winterized version of the Alliance's standard-issue anti-projectile armor, or how I seem to prefer being assigned to colonies like Noveria, Valhalla or New Scandinavia."

The Cerberus operative absent-mindedly glanced over Shepard's form on his seat. Indeed, he had somehow acquired a suit of winterized N7 armor, which he had probably taken from the Lazarus Station's armory, abandoning the normal, unmodified one he was issued in the medbay earlier. In almost all aspects, the winterized N7 armor is quite similar to its unmodified version, but it had a built-in heating system that lets the wearer survive for indefinite amounts of time in even Noveria's harsh blizzard-infested weather, as well as a white camouflage pattern to hide the wearer in the snowy environment.

"Is that cloak standard-issue as well?" Asked Jacob, looking at the object in hand attached to Shepard's armor.

"For designated marksmen of my caliber, yeah." Said Shepard. "This isn't just an ordinary cloak. If I find myself unable to use my tactical cloak module for some reason, this cloak is made with precisely nine-thousand and one interweaving ribbons of light-absorbing, color shifting material which name I find hard to pronounce."

Jacob nodded, and Miranda opened her mouth to talk again. "I've got just one more question for you, Shepard. Are you ready?"

The commander sank on his seat again. "Sure. Fire away, Lawson."

"Do you know anything about Cerberus, like what we do, or what we're after? We brought you back to life, so do you trust us?"

Of course, the third part about Miranda's question was just her trying to see if Shepard suffered brain damage. If he _did_ say 'yes', then the project would be considered a failure, no questions asked.

Shepard had been expecting this question, and he answered readily and without hesitation. As he talked, his piercing, analytic eyes glared at Miranda, making sure he has her undivided attention. "Cerberus is an organization that believes that humanity ought to have a greater, more powerful role in the galactic community, and that the Alliance is too bogged down by red tape and public opinion to actually stand a chance against the Council." The commander's facial features contorted into a stern, disapproving look. "From what I've personally seen, you'll do whatever it takes to reach your goal, no matter how unethical or wrong your methods are. I think you already know if I trust you or not."

If Miranda was either pleased or irritated at the commander's answer, she did not show it. In fact, she did not show any emotion at all, as evidenced by the tone of her voice. "That settles it, then. You're still a hundred percent of your old self. I can now safely say that the Lazarus Project is a resounding success."

Jacob could do nothing but roll his eyes as he nursed his head. He took another look outside the shuttle. The former marine smiled at what he saw behind it. "That's the station over there. Load up, people, we're here."

* * *

**Triton Station, 18:27 TCUT**

Commander Shepard walked away from the room after his talk with the Illusive Man. After getting a good look at the man's eyes and noticing how he acts like he's on top of everything, Shepard couldn't help but feel a little wary of anything related to Cerberus.

Miranda and Jacob were in a middle of a conversation when they saw Shepard heading for the shuttle again. They assumed that he already knew what to do, so they followed him.

"How'd it go, Shepard?" Asked Jacob, trying to make a good impression of Cerberus by acting nice.

"He wants us to investigate a colony called 'Freedom's Progress', which was recently attacked, from what I've heard. The three of us are going to look for clues to determine who or what were the perpetrators of the attack." The commander answered as he slipped on his helmet, taking a seat inside the shuttle as he did so.

"We've got our orders from the Illusive Man, but what are _your_ orders for the mission, Shepard?" Asked Miranda, trying to be as forthright as possible.

The commander's answer was quick and straightforward. "If you two see any survivors, try to protect them if there's danger present." He took his rifle from his back, which unfolded on his lap. "But if you're given a choice of saving civilians or completing the mission, you'll go for the mission. It always comes first."

This time, Miranda gave a faint smile, which the commander recognized as approval. "Anything else the Illusive Man told you?" She asked.

Shepard sat silent for a second. He thought of ways to condense the Illusive Man's secondary orders to Miranda and Jacob. "Yeah… there _is_ something else. He also told me about some strange readings his scouts found on the colony's general area. Your boss wants us to investigate two locations: one's a few meters west of Gallagher Street, and another one in a courtyard near our LZ."

That was the best he could think of without making it sound utterly ridiculous.

The Cerberus operative shrugged, finding nothing out of the ordinary. "That's hardly a cause for concern. Let's get it done."

"That's not all, though." Shepard continued, giving Miranda an annoyed look behind his helmet. "The Illusive Man also thought that there's something highly dangerous lurking in those areas, so he'll be giving us two six-man squads of his field operatives as support," He then gave the same look to Jacob. "Meaning that he'll have more eyes on me." The commander sighed, from a combination of fatigue and remorse at the situation he was in, knowing that he couldn't do anything much but cooperate with what used to be his enemy. "Great."

* * *

**Downed Skyranger, Gallagher Street, Freedom's Progress, 19:57 TCUT**

"T1.5 PE systems rebooted and online."

A faint, soothing hum could be faintly heard.

"Elerium reserves at 99.17 percent capacity. Synthetic muscle strands functioning properly. Slight operational damages to chestplate, faceplate and left gauntlet detected. Beginning field repairs. Tactical assessment: Good to go."

The soldier slowly came back into consciousness.

"Welcome back, Echo Two."

The first things that he saw were his armored feet, which were magnetically locked to the Skyranger's floor. Soon enough, a detailed, blue-tinted medical report of himself popped up on his vision behind his helmet's visor, delivered by his Titan V1.5 Powered Exoframe's built-in AI.

"The damages to your chestplate and your left gauntlet have been temporarily remedied with alien epoxy." The cheerful, synthesized female voice of the AI chirped as the soldier kept reading the medical report. "The faceplate has been too damaged to repair; recommend a swift end to current operation so proper repairs could commence at Dr. Shen's workshop."

He studied the report for a moment before willing it away; besides a couple of cracked ribs, some bruises that'll undoubtedly start to sting later and some minor lacerations on some parts of his body, the information indicated that he will be fine, more or less, so he thanked God for the rapid-acting regenerative gene-mods his body possessed. After a while, he realized that he was looking down, so with difficulty, he righted his head and scrutinized his surroundings. He couldn't see very well because of some cracks on his helmet's faceplate, as well as a few pieces of dirt and grime picked up from his last mission, but he could see well enough to dismiss the issue.

The soldier could see all five his teammates for the ill-fated mission he partook in were still settled secure to their seats, their heads hung low. He couldn't tell if they're still alive or not, so he asked the AI for the answer.

"Echo Two and Five are still in operation." The AI's voice gave him the news. "Echo One, Three, Four and Six do not possess any lifesigns, as well as Little Sky. Tactical assessment: Operation Event Horizon is in extreme danger of failing. Recommend a change in tactics. With the death of Little Sky, exfiltration is rendered impossible. Good luck, agents."

Echo Two frowned bitterly and sighed; it's only him and a single squadmate left. He slowly reached for the side of his helmet and pushed the tiny knob labelled 'AI', silencing the voice for the moment. Next, he pushed another knob hidden under a compartment on his armor's thigh, which was labelled 'Unlock Armor'.

The armor made a metallic clunking sound. Moments later, his feet didn't feel like they were bolted in place anymore, and the fluidity of the his limbs returned, allowing him to easily tear off his seatbelt with a gauntleted hand, augmented by the extra strength provided to him by his armor, along with the strength-enhancing gene-mods implanted to his body. He stood up and cautiously removed his deceased teammates' holo-tags as a sign of respect, muttering his farewells as he did so. First was Echo One, or as she was named: Claire Wilson, the Irishwoman. She was Echo Squad's highest-ranking member at colonel, so it was natural that she was the leader. It had helped that she also possessed the 'Gift', as indicated by a small, purple-hued, ornate badge shaped like a human skull permanently attached to her armor's chest area. In addition, she was also a Category Beta Plus – the third-highest category for ranking Gifted individuals.

The second was Lieutenant Gerard Buskirk, or Echo Three. He was the team's Dutch corpsman, and at the age of fifty-three, the oldest one as well. He was not the nicest person around, not by a longshot, but his age didn't stop him from doing really insane stunts to keep the team alive, such as running across a field to attend to an injured rookie without any sort of cover while Mutons and Floaters take potshots at him.

Next was Lieutenant Amitabh Gasebonwe, the team's South African CQC specialist. Instead of being previously an enlisted soldier like the rest of the squad, Amitabh was just an exceptionally athletic civilian recruited by his organization who just happened to have a really good aim with a shotgun.

The last member of Echo Squad whom had since passed on was Sergeant Xiao Chen Li, who was designated as Echo Six, the newest member of the squad. She supposedly had really good technical expertise, in addition to her role of providing suppressing fire, but she didn't live long enough to show her skills.

After the solemn deed was over and done with, Two undid Echo Five's seatbelt and carried her out of the Skyranger, into the outskirts of a small Swiss town, from what Central had told everyone just before they jumped off the Skyranger.

Two stood still as he stepped out of the aircraft, shielding his eyes from a lamppost's glare. After his eyes adjusted to the light, He took a quick, cursory look at his environment for a while. From his observation, the place certainly doesn't exactly look like a town. Instead, it looks like a temporary hab-station of some sort, like what scientists use as shelter in the field. However, the area proved desolate; devoid of any and all signs of life besides a few scattered sheets of paper on the ground here and there.

So _this_ is what Switzerland really looks like.

Remembering that he still has a wounded teammate in his arms, he soon smothered the disappointed feeling within the pit of his stomach and walked off to find a place to set Five down to check the extent of her injuries.

Two found a good spot after a minute's worth of walking. He laid Five against a concrete wall and removed her helmet. She is holding relatively stable, but she is unconscious, no doubt because of the crash. Her condition might deteriorate without proper medication, and their current location might not be as safe as it appeared, so the soldier concluded that he needed his weapon. He walked back to the Skyranger to retrieve his gun, a Snapdragon Mk. IV Plasma Minigun. The Snapdragon is connected to a specially designed backpack that provides the necessary power needed to fire the gun in full-auto. Normally, the Snapdragon is to be mounted on aircraft and used as an air-to-air weapon, but Two's extraordinary size and strength allowed him to use the hulking weapon like a normal squad-support firearm, at the cost of sacrificing the ability to carry a Blaster Launcher.

To his relief, Two found the gun to be mostly unharmed where he left it: inside a large, locked compartment near the seat closest to the exit. He put the backpack on and carried the weapon itself on his arms, savoring the grip's familiar metallic touch on his fingers. Since he could afford to carry much more, Two also seized an Avocet-pattern alloy cannon from the Skyranger floor, attaching the mag-lock to his hip. If he managed to run out of power on his chargepack, he'd have another weapon to use besides his pistol. Without much hesitation, he left the Skyranger to tend to Five, feeling safer than ever now that he had something to defend the remnants of Echo Squad with.

When he returned to the unconscious markswoman's location, however, he nearly had a heart attack.

Converging on Five's position are a small fireteam of what looked like bipedal humanoid robots with two red circles on where their faces should be. The robots were all armed with pistol-like firearms from a design that the soldier had never seen before.

Running noiselessly to Five's unconscious form, the soldier dragged her by her armor's collar to cover behind an overturned, oddly-designed dumpster, just in case these robots turn out to be the newest type of attack drones made by the Ethereals.

Silently, Two opened up a radio channel using his helmet's built-in comm-bead. He tried to call for Xenobane Squad, which was in another Skyranger. Judging from what he saw from his own aircraft's windows as it plunged to the ground, Xenobane Squad's Skyranger had a clipped, heavily damaged wing, as well as a missing tail rotor. It was safe to assume that they'd be stranded on this location with Echo Squad.

"Xenobane Lead, this is Major Heinrich," He said, with a pronounced German accent. "Everyone in Echo is dead except for me and Claudia, and she's out cold at the moment. It looks like I'm about to go in combat again, so if you're there, I'd really appreciate it if you'd try finding us. I'm in…" Schafer studied a nearby street sign, licking his lips when he saw that it was in English and in three other languages he can't recognize. "A street called Gallagher. This is Heinrich, over and out."

Setting his message out in a repeating loop, Heinrich checked his weapon for ammo, which he found to be at 48% charge, to his relief. It was probably more than enough to dispatch these robots.

"Lifeform detected. Searching…" A mechanical voice pierced the silence. Heinrich tensed up and brought his weapon downrange, ready to fire.

Clanking sounds were heard, becoming louder and louder each second. One of the robots turned its head to see Heinrich pointing his weapon's barrel end at it. It stopped on its tracks like a deer on the path of an incoming truck. It studied the soldier for a split-second before saying: "Unauthorized lifeform spotted." It raised its pistol and fired, forcing Heinrich to dive into cover behind a metal crate. "Please vacate the premises immediately. A fine of five hundred credits will be issued to you momentarily."

Heinrich was left dumbfounded as the bullets _pinged_ behind the crate he was hiding behind. _It was talking in English and was warning me to go away as it gave me a fine? _He doesn't have any time to ponder about that, though; there's a fight that needed winning. The major waited for the guns to stop firing before popping out of cover and squeezing his Snapdragon's firing stud, optimistic about his weapon's effectiveness against his new enemy.

Brilliant green plasma fire in the dozens emerged from the minigun's barrel with a swooshing sound, engulfing the closest of the hostile machines, which promptly fell apart in several scorching pieces. The major arched both of his eyebrows in amazement at that one. He was expecting the robots to be promptly destroyed by plasma fire, but not _that _easily; these ET-made robots are rather fragile.

The three remaining robots took the 'death' of their comrade with little care as they continued marching forwards, firing their weapons without any intention of finding cover. It turns out, not only are these robots delicate, but their programming is stupid as well, as if the Sectoids who made them just didn't care. Heinrich also learned quickly that the robots' pistols were of little use to his armor, so he opted to just finish the fight then and there.

Pushing the crate aside, the major fired at the machines in controlled bursts to minimize energy loss. Immediately, a robot was decapitated by a plasma bolt, which dropped to the ground and exploded like a grenade. Another bolt tore off a robot's arm, which was followed by another that took off the other arm and the majority of its torso. Still, it continued marching as if it still had something to kill Heinrich with. The fourth robot was ripped apart by a barrage of plasma bolts. There was virtually nothing left of it, being only a smoldering pair of disembodied metal legs.

The last, armless robot stopped advancing just a few meters in front of the major, as if it wants to be put out of its misery. Heinrich obliged by delivering a gauntleted clout to the robot's head, literally flattening the front of its mechanical face. Acting quickly, he shoved the machine away, which exploded harmlessly in the distance.

That fight was really strange and disconcerting to the major. Normally, anything made by the Ethereals were built to be durable as all hell, shrugging plasma bolts like they were mere annoyances, as evidenced by the new 'Mechtoid' alien type and the updated MKII Sectopods. But these robots were easily destroyed; a single plasma bolt to the head seemed to be enough, but destroying them in that way causes them to detonate in a fairly small radius. That fight was too easy to be considered a fight at all, and in fact, calling for backup from Xenobane Squad seems like an unnecessary option.

Suddenly, an ear-shattering, piercing wail-like sound filled the air, followed by loud, clanking noises that grew louder and louder in short order. Immediately, Heinrich sprinted for protection again. He couldn't make it to cover without some damage, though, as several bullets slammed on his Snapdragon's chargepack while he ran.

About three dozen robots appeared, supported by a dozen fast-running, four-legged, dog-shaped robots. Their functions elude the major's scrutiny, besides that they were supposed to be frontline close-combat troops, like Chryssalids or Berserkers.

Heinrich fired a quick burst of plasma fire upon the ones closest to him before he ran back to Claudia's position. He activated the mag-lock on his armor's thigh and attached his weapon to it, which made a metallic _thud _as his armor magnetically fastened it. Immediately after, he carried his unconscious teammate away from the robots as fast as he can, being fired upon all the way. More than several times did he feel their bullets graze and impact his Salazarite alloy armor, to little effect.

After a few minutes' worth of running, the major found a hab with a good view of the advancing machines, with plenty of cover to hide behind. Heinrich quickly but gently laid his teammate down behind a metal fence, careful not to worsen her condition by rubbing one of her wounds the wrong way. Once he was sure she was safe, Heinrich went out of the building again to deal with the robots.

Once he was outside, though, he found something that he wasn't expecting. It's as if the machines had the ability to double their numbers. In fact, the whole street was just so crowded with them, that missing a shot was next to impossible. However, the Snapdragon wouldn't have enough charge to dispatch every robot present, so Heinrich would have to eventually resort to using his sidearms or he'd risk being overrun in overwhelming numbers.

Small arms fire peppered Heinrich's position without any signs of stopping. He could only do so much as peek out of cover for a second, wait a minute for the bullets to stop, then fire for another second before repeating what he just did. Sometimes, he'd chuck away one of his grenades, but he couldn't squint out of cover to see if they had any effect. Little by little, the machines' ranks were being thinned, but at the same time, the major could feel the wounds being inflicted on him to finally take their effects on him. The metallic dark gray luster that his armor once possessed could no longer be found, its surface littered with pockmarks and scorch marks alike. Heinrich couldn't take much more.

In desperation, he called for help once more from Xenobane Squad, despite not knowing if they're actually listening. He even tried pinging HQ, but for some reason, only the 'No Signal - Too Far' sign is displayed over his HUD. Calling for help from Xenobane proved futile, as he was only met with disturbing amounts of static.

The major prepared himself for a last stand. A death by being swarmed by mechanical monstrosities isn't a death he expected; he was expecting Echo Squad's death to be more heroic, glorious and awe-inspiring, but he doesn't have any choice in the matter. He'd fight these machines with his fists if even his sidearm's charge would run out.

Abruptly, the robots' right flank collapsed under a hail of bullets, and the robots in the center were torn apart by successive series of explosions, which was likely from several grenades thrown in synchronization with each other. The charging, dog-like robots stopped on their tracks and changed direction, and the humanoid robots shifted positions to cover their now-exposed flank.

Major Heinrich squinted under his piece of cover, and his eyes landed on something that he was praying quite hard to show up: friendlies.

There were a dozen of them, huddling behind anything they could use as cover, exchanging fire with the machines with strange projectile weapons varying from assault rifles to shotguns. Standing in the middle of them is the squad leader, who doesn't resort to using a weapon like her other colleagues, but she had an orange hologram around her arm, which she uses to somehow project electrical shocks at the machines' ranks. Heinrich even saw her being able to somehow hack into some of the robots, programming them to attack one another while ignoring its former enemies.

_Now, why the hell do we _not _have one of those?_ The major thought. He idly considered that if his organization had access to this sort of technology years ago, a lot of rookies might've been saved. In a way, he was not surprised; everyone should be reverse-engineering Ethereal tech by now if they wanted to live through the invasion, and even the most technologically backwards countries should be able to devise their own version of anti-Ethereal weaponry, and it's quite understandable if they didn't want to share their technology with anyone, seeing that their creations might get turned against them if the aliens were fought off.

Heinrich couldn't see very well, that much was obvious, but he could see that they look a little… strange, to be Swiss soldiers. He was expecting them to be wearing winter gear, but their uniform closely resembled intricately decorated, full-body _hazmat suits _from what he could tell, with murky, opaque visors for vision.

_Come to think of it, this place isn't even slightly chilly. Maybe this isn't Switzerland after all._ Heinrich contemplated, before being rudely set upon by one of the dog-like robots.

It stood still for a split-second before emitting an electrostatic charge, which knocked the major back from the sudden attack. It was a shallow victory, though. The dog-machine didn't survive a second under Heinrich's attention.

Kicking the robot's plasma-burnt husk away, Heinrich waited for his enemies to finally ignore him to completely focus on their most immediate threat: his erstwhile allies. Once the small-arms fire on his position died down, he quickly made a dash to the soldiers, with the intent of saving them from being overwhelmed. Heinrich figured the squad leader would be more effective if she made use of a weapon, and the Avocet he possessed should be the easiest one to wield.

* * *

**Gallagher Street, Freedom's Progress, 20:32 TCUT**

"This is the stupidest plan you've ever come up with for today!" Prazza shouted from behind a concrete pillar.

"Would you please just shut up and do your job? I can't stand you complaining for every step we take for the entire damn mission!" Tali shouted back to her subordinate while she overloaded a nearby LOKI mech, jumping under cover again after she did so.

"But he isn't–" A hail of gunfire forced Prazza to stick back to cover. "But he isn't what we came down here for!" He continued.

Tali could do nothing but run a palm through her faceplate. "Just do what I tell you, Prazza. You damn well know that we aren't going past that YMIR with just what we have at hand. You've seen what he can do, we could use his help."

Prazza only grumbled in response before lobbing an anti-synthetic grenade at the mechs' general direction.

"Watch out, we've got incoming!" One of Prazza's men suddenly cried out, pointing at a group of charging FENRIS mechs. Everyone got ready to move away and find new cover, but energy weapons fire promptly consumed the dog-like mechs before they even got close.

Prazza stood slack-jawed behind his helmet at what he just witnessed. "Holy…" He turned around to look at the source of the bright green projectiles.

Tali was in the middle of checking her suit for damages when she saw Prazza staring at her, seemingly in astonishment_. _She was about to ask him if he's going to complain again but she decided against it, merely sending him an irritated look behind her visor.

A rumbling, robotic cough from behind her nearly sent her jumping away in surprise; it was audible enough to be heard with all the guns firing. She spun around, looked up and stood visor-to-visor with the heavily armed and armored human, who was surely a head and a half taller than her. A barrage of bullets forced the two into cover, and the human promptly tried to hand Tali something that resembled a weapon.

_He must've noticed I don't have anything besides my omni-tool._ She mused, temporarily forgetting about the LOKIs trying to kill everyone. He, on the other hand, must have noticed her awestruck expression from behind her mask, because he roughly shoved the gun to her chest and immediately began shooting again, with the rest of Prazza's marines contributing their fire.

The quarian mechanic studied the object on her hands for a moment as she hid behind cover. Usually, she'd already be back in the fight, but the weapon's unfamiliar design piqued her curiosity. It was oddly light for its large size, and the materials used to manufacture it were unknown to her. In a way, it was simple enough; it had every part a gun could have. Still, Tali had no idea of what the weapon _fires_ exactly. Popping out of cover, she decided to give it a try. She hoped it was a shotgun.

When she pulled the trigger, what came out of the weapon's barrel end wasn't plasma, that's for sure. Tali couldn't make what it really was because it was too fast, but she knew it was a thick, slug-like projectile of some sort. Whatever it was, its effects on the LOKIs were devastating; the projectile smashed through a robot, utterly annihilating its chest and doing the same to the four mechs behind it. Tali had no doubt that if there were more mechs lined up, the projectile… or perhaps _projectiles _(so it really WAS a shotgun. Who knew?), wouldn't have any problems going through them.

"Keep the pressure up, 'Zorah! Let's see that again!" The marine next to Tali exclaimed. Her voice was filled with amazement.

"Prazza, there's a cluster of mechs on my right flank, and my left flank's exposed! I'm completely swarmed over here!" A panicked marine shouted over his radio. "What the- how did he- argh... never mind." He restated after he witnessed their new ally reducing the group of clustered mechs into charred metal husks in short order, allowing him to shift position safely.

"Cut the chatter, you idiots!" Prazza shouted into his radio, making sure his voice was loud enough to be heard over the gunfire from both sides. "Stop talking and get back to killing. There's plenty more of these Ancestors-damned synthetics to shoot!"

A chorus of swift affirmatives swarmed the channel as the marines logged off and went back to fighting.

In the span of twenty-four seconds, a battle that should've lasted minutes was concluded with the last remaining mechs being mangled apart by combined weapons fire. Tali and Prazza were expecting casualties and a few suit ruptures, but they were relieved to find that there were fewer than they expected, with no significant suit ruptures to speak of, only a few glancing shots here and there.

As soon as the quarians finished checking their suits for damages, their heads turned to observe the subject of their endeavor, who was currently doing _something_ to his helmet. When he noticed, the human stopped what he was doing and observed back.

The staring contest lasted for a minute before everyone realized that there's really no way to see if anyone blinked. The human broke the silence by speaking up first.

If only the quarians understood what he said, though. It appears that he's speaking in a language that isn't English, the most used human language.

"I can understand him." A female voice unexpectedly whispered into the radio, breaking the silence. She had her external speakers disabled, so her words didn't make it to the human's ears, only her team's.

Each and every quarian present turned their head to Tali, who nodded with confidence. "When I was with my human captain... I tried to be, um, _prepared._" Her confidence faltered in short order. "I took the time to download several translation programs about some major human languages."

"Well? What did he say, 'Zorah?" Prazza asked. "And what's he speaking in? We could download the same program you did."

"I think he's saying thanks, from what I heard." Tali responded. "And he's speaking in a language called 'German'. I've sent everyone a link to the program to your omni-tools. It should take a few seconds to download, even if the extranet connection here is as slow as a turning liveship."

* * *

**20:39 TCUT**

Major Heinrich could only stare at the Swiss (?) soldiers in confusion. So far, they haven't uttered a word to him, and now, it seems that everyone except the squad leader was now fiddling with orange holograms around their arms. He _still _couldn't see clearly, but he could've sworn their fingers were… funny looking. Their body shapes were humanoid, with males and females being clear enough to distinguish, but the major couldn't help but feel a little unnerved at how they seem a little off.

Also, these soldiers seem to be fielding some advanced technologies that even his organization hasn't even come close to making. More than once did he expect one of the soldiers to fall under sustained fire, but they seemed to be protected by their very own personal shields. Not the sort of psychic shields that Sectoids and Ethereals use, as they appear to be purely technological. Also, the orange holograms that appeared around their arms appear to be capable of doing a multitude of tasks, whether they are combat-oriented tasks or not.

Moreover, Heinrich had always believed that the Swiss people had German as an official language. The soldiers clearly did not understood what he said, which only further reinforced his roving suspicion that he isn't really in Switzerland. Surely there must be a single person who knew a few phrases in his native language. He opted instead to speak in English.

"Err, I'm sorry. Do any of you speak English?" He asked, a little hopeful for a 'yes'.

Abruptly, almost in unison, the holograms around the soldiers' arms disappeared as they dropped their arms and turned their faceplates to Schafer. They were obviously surprised.

A soldier in a bone-white hazmat suit approached him cautiously, rifle in hand. He stopped just a few meters short from the major and said, "Well, we don't. But every one of us had English in our translators right now." He spoke in a vague Eastern European accent, from what Heinrich could tell.

Silence reigned for seconds.

"…Excuse me, uh… translators?" The major asked.

"Yes, human. Not to offend, but you should know this by now if you keep up with the current technological trends." The soldier responded, with a tone like that of an adult explaining complicated matters to a child. "So, what are you doing in Freedom's Progress? Are you part of this colony's security detail, or are you with the Alliance?"

Heinrich was once again confused. "Freedom's Progress? Alliance? What are you getting…"

The major just realized something. "Why are you calling me 'human'? Are you–"

The soldier sighed from behind his mask, a sigh that was a little too somber to be just from exasperation. "Yes, me and my friends here," He looked to his fellows, taking a prolonged, dirty look at the squad leader. It was obvious to Heinrich that this soldier doesn't like his superior very much. "Are not human. You see, we're what you'd call aliens. In a way, I'm not surprised; not many of your kind see our kind in person, what with the current state of the quarian people." The soldier raised a hand from his rifle, for Heinrich to see. "Do you see how many digits do I have?"

_That was an odd question to ask_, the major thought. He cleared his vision, letting his suit's internal scrubbers to remove the debris speckling his helmet's visor from the inside, while using a gauntleted hand to coarsely do away with the dirt from the outside. What he saw startled him, to say the least. He could barely prevent himself from doing something decidedly unpleasant to these 'quarians', and he's not thinking about using his weapon, oh no. That would be all too easy.

He's a Category Beta Minus psionic.

Fortunately for everybody, the Great Ethereal War has yet to harden Heinrich to the point of thinking that everything that isn't from Earth is definitely looking forward to reducing all humans into ash with a Fusion Lance. His instincts told him to do what he had always done when it came down to extraterrestrials, but his brain told him that if these ones hadn't tried to riddle him with bullets yet, they might have no intentions of doing so in the future anyway. Besides, these aliens probably know more about Heinrich's situation than he does. If they suddenly dropped dead due to an inexplicable case of cerebral hemorrhage, Heinrich might find himself trapped in his location indefinitely, not to mention that he still has an injured teammate that needed medical attention.

"Look," The major clamped his gun to his armor. "I don't know why you're not trying to kill me right now, or why you don't seem to have access to plasma weaponry, but I'm going to need your help." He motioned for the aliens to follow him to Claudia's position. They followed cautiously.

As the group walked, the alien squad leader chose to speak up after thinking over her words carefully. "So… we haven't really introduced ourselves yet."

"Indeed, we haven't." Heinrich agreed. "My friends call me 'Rook', but you could just call me Heinrich." He paused, letting his words sink in. "While I think that your names might just go over my head, I'm still willing to listen."

"Very well…" The alien inhaled a lungful of air. "My name is Tali'Zorah vas Neema." Seeing the major shaking his head, the quarian sighed. "…Or, you could just call me by my friends do: Tali."

The alien in the bone-white suit snorted. "Good. That means that I don't have to call you Tali." He said, his tone full of spite.

"And that's Prazza. He's _such_ an upbeat member of the team." Tali deadpanned.

Prazza ignored his superior and directed his sights on the major's back. "You still have not answered my question from earlier. What are you doing in this colony?"

This alien's attitude is doing a fine job of souring Heinrich's mood even more. He was lucky that he could restrain himself from giving him the worst headache he could ever experience in his life. "I was originally part of a six-man squad of alien hun-" He cut himself off. The quarians didn't seem to notice, to his relief. "…a six-man squad of troopers. All that's left of my squad is myself, and an injured sniper. Do you have medical supplies that work on humans?"

"We've got several applications of medi-gel with us," Tali informed, "We should have enough for your friend for her condition be stabilized. What's her condition?"

"She's out cold, and I think she's also suffering from internal injuries." Heinrich replied matter-of-factly. "Our medic had supplies that could help, but last I've checked, he used up all of it trying to keep us alive."

"Your weapon," Prazza interposed. "You humans have access to _energy weapons_ now? And is that some sort of powered exoskeleton you're wearing?"

Heinrich was confused once more. "Um, is that significant?" Suddenly, he realized something important. "Has your race, by any chance, encountered any Ethereal forces yet?" The major asked, just as the group had just arrived at the house where Claudia rested.

"'Ethereal'? We don't know of this." One of the aliens from behind spoke up. "I have no idea what is an Ethereal." Another said. "Is it a new race the Council hasn't heard about, yet?" Another one asked.

Words cannot express the relief that flooded Heinrich's senses. He felt his battle-ready stance slacken considerably, as if a colossal weight has been lifted off his shoulders. There are no Ethereal forces here.

However, that also meant another thing: it seems that Dr. Vahlen's predictions are correct; the Ethereals _are_ trying open up a rift from other universes, and it appears that the remnants of Echo Squad and possibly Xenobane squad are stuck in this particular universe. Still, the thought of having to fight the Ethereals no longer was a relaxing prospect.

"Hey," Tali's voice snapped Heinrich out of his trance. "Are you alright? You just stood still for a moment there."

With a tired smile behind his faceplate, Heinrich spoke as he opened the door to the room where he left Claudia. "Yes, yes. I'm quite alright."

But just as the door went open, Major Heinrich spotted something that he was hoping he wouldn't. It was a barely visible, ghostly silhouette in the form of a humanoid menacingly pointing a plasma pistol at the aliens' general direction.

Time went deathly still. Heinrich knew that preventing the silhouette from firing its pistol is out of the question; it was quite the gunslinger. He also knew that its aim always proved true, no matter how improbable the shot is. With these things implanted dearly in his mind, out of reflex, the major shoved the unfortunate alien that the silhouette had made its target to the floor. He had acted just in time; the alien will live to see another day, with only a minor concussion as a consequence.

The plasma bolt arced in the air, impacting a metal wall and blowing a three-meter wide hole in it. Heinrich immediately lunged at the silhouette and grasped its arm in a gentle (for his strength) grip, which was strong enough to cause the pistol it was holding to slip out of its hand. It clattered lightly on the hab's floor.

The quarians stood still in shock at first, trying the piece together what happened, but in another second, they scrambled for cover and warily trained their firearms at the armored female human that seemingly materialized out of thin air, being restrained by the giant of a man that is Heinrich.

"Easy there, Claudia…" Heinrich spoke in a calming voice. "It's alright; nothing's going to hurt you." He spoke in his native tongue to prove that he isn't being mind-controlled.

Claudia Vogel tried to squirm out of her sole surviving teammate's grasp, but her wounds coupled with fatigue reduced her efforts into pathetic, limp flailing. "What are you doing, Heinrich? There's a couple of X-rays right behind you." Her voice was weak and raspy, like she isn't one to talk much. "Let me go."

"It's okay, these ones aren't with the Ethereals. They're friendly." Slowly, Heinrich settled his teammate down, slouched on a wall. "It's a long story, but you've got to trust me on this one."

"Heinrich… what're you planning to…" Claudia's eyelids went low, and she faded once more into unconsciousness.

Heinrich breathed a sigh of relief. He was just about to walk over to the alien he previously pushed to the ground to check on him and apologize when the door to the hab suddenly folded itself open. A group of humans, both old and new, stepped inside, weapons aimed downrange and at the ready.

* * *

**Cerberus Landing Zone, Freedom's Progress, 20:22 TCUT**

**30 Minutes Earlier…**

Commander Shepard followed Miranda and Jacob out of the shuttle. Out of instinct, he scanned his surroundings with a hunter's eye, trying to find anything that could pose a threat.

Freedom's Progress is just a fledgling colony, with virtually nothing to distinguish itself from other colonies just starting out. At the start, habs were the only things that could be erected as shelter for the colonists, in substitute for actual houses. Concrete pillars that were to be built as houses stood like guardians to an important figure, and crates of supplies and building materials were scattered around, unattended and unremembered.

The Illusive Man's words were correct; whomever or whatever abducted the colonists left no evidence that they were there at all, except for the missing colonists themselves.

Just as Shepard finished his scan, two other shuttles painted in Cerberus colors landed next to his. A moment later, a six-man squad of Cerberus soldiers stepped out of each shuttle. Miranda and Jacob came to greet them. They exchanged a few words, after which every one of the soldiers saluted in perfect harmony before making their way to Shepard.

"Commander Shepard," One of the troopers, a lanky figure donned in a suit of Ceberus' standard-issue officer combat armor talked in a robotic, grating voice, not unlike that of a drell's. "You can call me Lieutenant Lars, and I'm the one tasked with leading these soldiers. We've been assigned by the Illusive Man to serve as your escorts as you traversed the colony. He suggested that we investigate the courtyard for answers first, as it's the closest to our location."

Shepard couldn't help but be unnerved at how the soldier spoke. "Alright, lieutenant. Lead the way to the courtyard, we'll be right behind you."

The soldier remained unmoving. "I'm not in charge, commander. You are. We'll follow your lead if you decided to proceed to Gallagher Street first, not the courtyard."

"Commander," Miranda added herself to the conversation. "I strongly recommend that we head to the courtyard first. That way if things go awry, our retreat shouldn't be that far away."

Jacob also joined in. "If civilians are still around, I think they'll be heading there, but it's your choice, Shepard."

"Fine," The commander agreed. "Lieutenant, Jacob, take point. Miranda, with me. First squad, go with the lieutenant and Jacob. Second squad, watch our rear. Let's move, spear formation."

* * *

Ten minutes later…

"It looks like a crashed, banged-up, old VTOL…" Miranda voiced. "Now, what the bloody hell would be an aircraft that isn't capable of spaceflight doing here?"

"More importantly, what caused it to crash?" Shepard cut in. "Everyone, move forward. Find some cover if you can, whatever's in here could be host-"

Suddenly, a _massive_ humanoid synthetic appeared in view. It was heavily armored, but it moved with fluidity and speed that was disturbingly unfitting for its size. On its three-fingered hands is a firearm-shaped weapon; it was boxy and had a glowing, rotating piece of machinery in the middle. On its back is a mounted gun of some sort, with a glowing, canister-shaped device next to it. The final device it was equipped with is a vambrace of a sort, attached to its left arm. Its head is shaped like that of a fully-enclosed, futuristic combat helmet, and it was painted in urban camouflage colors, which made it stand out like a sore thumb amidst the gray and white.

It seemed to be patrolling the crashed VTOL's perimeter, like a guard dog of some kind. Furthermore, there seems to be the strange, unmistakable sound of old, human-style music being played, and it was emanating from the mech itself.

"Hey, that sounds familiar," One of the troopers spoke up. "That sounds like-"

"_Korobeiniki._" Shepard interrupted, his voice strangely lacking any emotion.

"Yeah, that old Tetris theme." Jacob talked. "Now, why the hell would some combat mech have an old Russian folk song playing on its external speakers?"

The former marine's question was left hanging in the air, as the Cerberus group kept observing the machine, and how it continued patrolling the crashed VTOL's perimeter. In fact, the silence was so thick and oppressive, that Shepard just had to break the silence to get his mind to linger away from some bad memories brought on by the strange melody.

"Whatever made that mech must be responsible for the abducted colonists," He muttered. "The colonists' defense mechs must've caused the aircraft to crash."

"But it doesn't add up." Whispered Miranda. "That VTOL isn't capable of spaceflight, meaning that wherever that mech came from, it's not from off-world."

"I don't like this." Said Shepard. "There's only one way to find out what's it doing here, and that's to either kill it and strip it to pieces for answers, or we could get out there and talk to it, and I'm inclined to talk."

Miranda shook her head, a bit disapprovingly. "Like you always do, Commander."

"I think we should scrap it." The Cerberus lieutenant stated his views. "Besides, I think its makers are behind the abductions anyway."

Jacob agreed, nodding his head. "It's a bit too risky if we just walked up to it to ask questions. Who knows, it could be programmed to shoot anything that moved on sight."

"No," Shepard snapped sharply. He had his personal reasons why he needed to talk to the mech. "We'll talk to it first. Get ready to move."

The Cerberus group did a quick weapons check before moving out. They stealthily relocated from cover to cover, making themselves utterly silent as possible. Sneaking about is one of the things that Shepard was naturally good at, being an infiltrator. Miranda was just as good as the commander when it comes to stealth, but her outfit's design and excessive… glossiness, made it a bit difficult for her. Jacob also had a bit of infiltration tactics training back when he was enlisted as a marine in the Alliance. The rest of the Cerberus troopers were the only ones having noticeable difficulty at trying to make themselves covert because their armor is made for direct conflict, not stealth. Alas, it proved to be their undoing.

One of the troopers, as she moved from cover to cover, flopped over to the ground after tripping on what appears to be an abandoned lunchbox. As she was wearing heavy armor, the sound it made as it impacted the concrete was very audible.

The synthetic snapped around and as it did so, it immediately spotted the Cerberus group making its way towards it. It levelled its gigantic weapon downrange and held the trigger down on the closest trooper.

At first, only a tiny, whitish-blue beam of light emerged from the weapon's barrel. It hovered on the trooper's chestplate, like a laser sight. But then, a split second later, something bright and powerful left the barrel. It arced through the air at incomprehensible speeds before scoring a direct hit to the trooper's torso.

The lance of searing blue light went right through to poor trooper's chest, leaving a gaping, smoking hole in its wake, scorching the trooper's innards to non-existence. The beam didn't stop there. It continued arcing; killing a pair of troopers who were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time before completely obliterating a hab's front end, exposing the interiors.

The machine's actions left Commander Shepard no other choice.

"Goddammit, return fire!" He ordered before quickly taking a swift snap of his rifle at the hostile synthetic.

Instantly, the rest of the troopers broke out of their stunned, horror-stricken state and heeded Shepard's orders. Shepard activated his cloaking device to reposition while Miranda and Jacob unleashed their biotics at the beleaguered robot.

The synthetic buckled under continuous enemy fire, but whatever material its armor is made of, it proved to be durable enough to absorb a wall of small arms fire coupled with biotic attacks. The machine blocked its head with its enormous hand before doing what Shepard and his people wasn't expecting it to.

Instead of taking cover, like Lieutenant Lars predicted, the machine actually charged at him, obviously recognizing his status as an officer. One of the braver troopers he commanded threw away his assault rifle and took out his shotgun before putting himself between the Lars and the charging synthetic. The trooper emptied the bulk of his Eviscerator's clip into the synthetic, but like all projectiles thrown at it, it shrugged it off; the mass accelerated slugs doing nothing but messing up its paintjob.

Once the synthetic was close enough to get in melee range, it held up its left arm, the one equipped with a vambrace-like device. It was then that three rockets revealed themselves from each side of the vambrace from a hidden compartment, and the device itself took the shape of a robotic fist.

Lars couldn't stop his jaw from dropping from its hinges as the synthetic propelled the rocket-assisted fist straight to the trooper's torso. The armor the trooper was wearing could theoretically stop ML-77 missiles, but against a Kinetic Strike Module accelerating at exactly three quarters of a thousand miles per hour, it was practically nothing.

With a garbled yell of pain, the trooper was literally thrown several meters away from the sheer impact of the force. In fact, the force was so strong, that his armor's chestplate might as well have been merged with his chest cavity. The synthetic then pulled a switch on its weapon, and in an instant, an oversized, green-hued bayonet made out of what seems like pure energy emerged from underneath the weapon. Whatever race made this machine must have technology that surpassed anything the galaxy has ever seen before.

"Lieutenant!" Miranda cried out to the stunned Lars. "Get the hell out of there; it's coming right for you!"

But it was too late. The machine stepped back to get some momentum before swiftly spearing the energy bayonet into Lars' throat. Boiling hot blood sprayed all over the ground, splattering some of the troopers who were at close proximity to the lieutenant.

Lars is certainly dead, that much was obvious, but to everyone's fear and surprise, instead of pulling the bayonet back, as if it had some sick, twisted mind of its own, the synthetic dragged the energy blade further down, splitting Lars' body in two from the throat down.

"Gah, fuck! Kill it, kill it!" A trooper shouted in a curious mix of fear and anger. "It just… did that?" Another muttered to himself in disgust and disbelief.

"Don't worry; I will do the same for you."

Once more, the synthetic surprised everyone by talking in a deep, synthesized voice. Whatever programming it had, it must be veering dangerously close to true artificial intelligence. Alas, it must be aware of the troopers' astonishment, as the mounted gun it has on its shoulder suddenly aimed itself at a cluster of Cerberus soldiers.

Two quick, successive, green-hued explosions blasted four of the troopers apart. It appears that the mounted gun is a grenade launcher of a sort.

The synthetic didn't even slacken its pace as the smoke began to clear. It continued dismembering limbs, blasting troopers apart or sending them flying with its rocket-fist. Shepard found out that he's running out of ammo for his Mantis, and that he might resort to unorthodox tactics soon. Miranda found herself strained and exhausted from using her biotics a little too much, and Jacob kept shooting and issuing the occasional order and warning from time to time, but the machine proved to be tougher than a whole group of YMIR mechs. Soon, the troopers were all but wiped out, and Shepard's original group found themselves to be the only ones left.

The commander didn't waste his time just emptying clip after clip on the synthetic, however. As he fired, repositioned, reloaded and fired again, a few weak spots were made apparent. One of such weak spots is the left leg. It appears to be damaged from an earlier battle, and a fat, seemingly inconspicuous gray wire could be seen with the help of an enhanced scope mod. Another weak spot is the canister next to the mounted gun. Shepard saw some of the troopers accidentally hit the device, after which a tiny electrical discharge would occur, causing the synthetic to stagger a bit.

"Miranda, Jacob, distract it as long as you can! I've got something!" The commander ordered.

"As you say, Shepard!" Miranda shouted back before unleashing a fresh hail of bullets followed by a biotic blast.

"Will do, commander!" Jacob acknowledged as he went up close with the synthetic to drive its attention towards himself.

The synthetic staggered a bit before resuming its assault. The two operatives struggled to keep the machine back, but it was gaining the upper ground little by little. Unusually, it seemed to recognize this, as it appears to have slowed down its assault slightly, like it was giving Miranda and Jacob a fair fight by giving itself a handicap.

But suddenly, a snap of a sniper rifle rang out, and the synthetic fell on one knee. It stood there for a moment, as if it was actually surprised of its situation. It looked down and saw that its left leg's servomotors had suffered too much damage to function properly. However, its apparent surprise didn't last long; it trained its weapon once more at Shepard, the source of the round that pierced its leg.

The commander barely had the time to roll out of the way before the civilian shuttle he was taking cover behind was set ablaze by the beam that went through it. He activated his cloak once more to reposition behind the now-immobile machine, to target the second weak spot he discovered.

The synthetic was seemingly perplexed that its target disappeared, but it quickly pressed its assault with new targets in mind, namely Miranda and Jacob. The two operatives ducked, sprinted, rolled away and avoided the beams that were being fired at them, but they could feel exhaustion beginning to sink in. More than once did they notice that the beams were getting a little too close to hitting them directly, but this knowledge only motivated the operatives to try their hardest, and soon, they were rewarded with another snap of a rifle echoing in the air.

Shepard hit the canister spot on, causing the synthetic to be engulfed in electrical energies, making it spasm and shudder uncontrollably as 1.21 gigawatts of electricity coursed through its circuits. It continued twitching as it lay on the ground, either dead or otherwise.

"Well, that could've ended better." Said Miranda as she inserted a fresh thermal clip into her submachine gun. "Two whole squads of our finest soldiers plus the three of us to take this mech down?" She sighed before returning to her usual attitude. "I shudder to think about what else could its creators produce."

In truth, whoever made the synthetic, the Cerberus operative was a little glad that they were human, judging from the music it played earlier.

"And I bet you're glad they're human." Shepard deadpanned, but he was a little disappointed at how his plan worked out. "Come on, let's crack this thing open and see if its memory banks had anyth-"

A ball of green energy slammed into the wall that Jacob was leaning against, levelling it and causing the operative to clumsily fall down on his back. A bright blue light illuminated the trio's position, blinding them from seeing the source of the projectile.

"All EXALT personnel, drop your weapons!" An authoritative, gruff, British-accented voice demanded. "You're facing superior weapons and training. Surrender, and you will not be harmed!"

Shepard activated his cloak and jumped into cover while Miranda just did the latter. Jacob stood absolutely still, trying to make himself look as dead as possible.

"Whoever you are, we did not come here to fight you!" Shepard shouted from behind cover, making sure to immediately reposition to not betray his position. "Your mech opened fire on us, we had to defend ourselves!"

The sound of heavy metallic footfalls could be faintly heard. It was becoming more and more audible. Shepard gripped his rifle tightly, preparing for another attack.

"Reveal yourselves so we can get a look at you." The voice commanded. "And don't think you can try anything. A single bolt's enough to reduce your upper torso into a fine bloody mess. We'll see if you're really with EXALT or not."

Warily, Shepard opened up a comm link to Miranda and Jacob.

"You two, stay in cover, but make yourselves seen. I'm gonna try to flank them from the side if they turn hostile." He ordered.

"Really, commander?" Miranda asked, in a tone of voice that suggests disapproval. "If they turn on us, we're done for."

"You got ten seconds!" The voice called out.

The commander weighed his options for a second. "I don't think there's really a choice now, isn't it? If they try to kill us, I don't think we'll be able to fight them off."

"We'll do it, Shepard." Jacob said, trying to put on a brave face. "If things go south, we'd really appreciate it if you'd stay alive.

"We've already spent too much on your life only for you to die now." Miranda said through clenched teeth.

"Aw, you guys _really_ do care." Shepard quipped. "Don't worry, we'll get out of this, I'm sure of it."

"Five seconds!" The voice stated again.

With that said, the two operatives popped out of cover and Shepard started his flanking maneuver. Miranda and Jacob shielded their eyes from the light's harsh glare.

"Sir, I don't think they're with EXALT." A feminine voice with a subtle French accent was heard. "We should turn the lights off now, they can't see us." Strange, Shepard thought. The voice sounded a bit remorseful.

"Is that thing that lady's wearin' standard-issue?" A voice with a slight Texan drawl asked. "If it is, I'd like to know what country we're in…" The voice's tone had a playful tinge to it. "And where do I sign up."

"Shut it, lieutenant." The first voice could be heard growling at the third one. "Lights off, people.

The cruel blue glare intensified for a second before dissipating in another. Miranda and Jacob immediately went to observing the unknown party.

There were three of them, each equipped with some sort of combat powered exoskeleton, and with all of them having some degree of damage to their armor. Two of the soldiers each had a strangely designed firearm with smooth cylindrical curves like a geth's rifle, a small hilt-like device underneath, and parts that glow a bright green. The third soldier had a different weapon entirely; it was boxier and coarser-looking than the ones the other two had, with some parts that glow a yellowish-orange hue.

The soldier in the middle had most of his gear painted a dark crimson red, with the armor possessing an angular, feral-like aesthetic design, like how the gauntlets' digits ended in unusually sharp claws, and how the helmet looked to be wearing an angry scowl, complete with eye sockets that glow red in the center. It was almost like the armor is designed to induce primal fear to those who opposed the soldier who wore it. Moreover, he had two mangled heads of an unknown alien species attached firmly to his belt, like a hunter's trophy from the toughest animals he killed, and his helmet had countless tally-marks crudely scratched on to the side.

The soldier to the right had a slimmer, more elegant-looking armor which matched her body's shape. Her armor looks immaculately maintained, besides the newly scorched areas of it. All of her equipment is painted a greyish-white, with a single red cross painted on one of her shoulderpads, and an unidentified device attached to her hip. The device looks a lot like a cube mounted on a pistol grip.

The third soldier looks a tad unusual; his armor looks poorly sustained, with rust and pockmarks littering its surface, in addition to being unpainted. His quadruple-eyed helmet is hooked up to several wires protruding from a small power supply attached to his upper arm, as well as a meter and a half long, tentacle-like robotic tendril attached to his armor's back, with a multitude of tools and weapons mounted on it. From its movements and appearance, the tendril appears to function almost exactly like a third mechanical arm.

It still wasn't clear what these soldiers are doing in Freedom's Progress, but they were clearly human, that much was clear.

"And who might you be?" Jacob queried as he continued studying the three soldiers. "I don't suppose you're the ones behind all this?"

The soldier in red raised a hand and pulled his helmet's faceplate up, revealing an unshaven, gaunt, heavily scarred face. The soldier would look intimidating, but his face had all the signs associated with extreme exhaustion. "Behind what?" He asked, in a vexed tone. "Look, we just got here, and we don't really know what's going on. If you'd kindly direct us to the closest military installation in this area, our organization would be very grateful."

"Your organization?" Said a disembodied voice. The three soldiers scrambled to find the source, after which Shepard decloaked right next to Jacob, startling him a little. "Mind telling us who do you work for?"

The first soldier was seemingly unfazed, the second soldier let out a chuckle at Jacob's expense, and the third soldier looks to be too astounded to speak.

"Woah, did you see that, colonel?" The third soldier asked the first, who appears to be the leader. "I thought we're the only ones with cloakin' tech!"

The leader ignored his compatriot. "That's classified information, soldier. That reminds me, are you part of this country's armed forces?"

"Yeah, we're soldiers," Jacob started. "But we're-"

"Country?" Miranda perplexedly asked, cutting the former marine off. "What country? We're in the colony of Freedom's Progress in the Terminus Systems, not in some country. This isn't Earth."

The first and the second soldiers seem to have taken Miranda's words with the bluntness of an accelerating bullet train. The first soldier felt his exhaustion take hold of him for a second, and he let his weapon fall from his grip, into the concrete. The second soldier stood absolutely still, letting the Cerberus operative's words sink in, and the third doesn't seem to be affected at all, having merely let out a curious-sounding 'huh', and scratched the top of his helmet with a metallic finger from his tendril.

The leader retrieved his fallen weapon from the ground and steeled himself once more. "Have you encountered any Ethereal forces yet?" Astonishingly, his voice remained calm and gruff. "Do you know anything about these guys?" He unclipped one of the heads on his belt and displayed it for all to see.

"I can't say I have, and I'm pretty sure Miranda and Jacob haven't, either." Shepard answered.

For some reason, the three soldiers' stances relaxed noticeably, with second soldier letting out an audible breath of relief.

"That's great." The leader said, seemingly pleased. "And can any of you tell me what's the date?"

Jacob switched his omni-tool on to see the date, but Miranda beat him to it.

"It's the 29th of March, two-one-eighty-five." She answered. "You're asking us this, why?"

Jacob chuckled to himself. "Maybe they're some sort of time travelers." He jested.

"Don't be stupid, Jacob." Miranda reprimanded her subordinate, but her tone remained neutral. "That sort of stuff happens only on those terrible sci-fi vids you were watching back at Lazarus."

Unbeknownst to the two operatives, two of the soldiers went back to their stunned, frozen state, with the third remaining unaffected. The information they were ingesting is quite hard to take in. It was a few seconds before the leader spoke again.

"No. We aren't 'time travelers', but we're quite close." He said, his voice grave.

"Well then! Now we're making progress." The commander said, all of the sudden. "Would you mind telling us who you are, and what are you doing here? We'd give you a ride back to Earth, if you wish, but we need answers first."

The leader sighed harshly. "Look, uh," He tried to find a name badge somewhere on Shepard's uniform.

"It's Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy." The commander stated his name. Everyone in the galaxy should know his name or how he looks like right now, but it appears that these people are from another galaxy of their own, and that might just be quite literal.

He then pointed his thumb behind him. "The lady behind me's called Lawson. Miranda Lawson. Her partner over there's Jacob Taylor."

"Right. Look, commander, it's a very long story that shouldn't be shared on a potential firezone. We've just encountered some robots that tried to kill us, but they were dealt with. Right now, we need a safe spot where we could get our bearings and bury our dead. Do you have a place?"

"You have some casualties?" Jacob asked.

"Yes, we do." The second soldier said. "There is supposed to be six of us in a squad, but two of our own didn't live through the crash." She spared a solemn look at the crashed VTOL a few meters away.

"What about that synthetic we just scrapped?" The commander asked. "Is it part of your squad?"

"You mean Alexei? You shot his electropulse generator, didn't you?" The third soldier worriedly asked.

"Yeah, he _was _trying to kill us back then, and he attacked us first. Our guns couldn't hurt it, so I had to find weak spots. You know how it goes." Shepard found himself confused. "That mech has a name?"

"Alexei _isn't_ a 'synthetic', commander." The soldier retorted curtly. "He's a MEC Trooper, which stands for Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit, meaning that yeah, he _does_ look like a robot, but he isn't. A more appropriate term would be 'cyborg'.

Before Shepard and Miranda could say anything about the legality of extensive body-altering cybernetics in Council space, the soldier had already run off to attend to the incapacitated cyborg.

"Back to the current matter at hand, do you have a place where we could lay low for a bit of time?" The leader asked again. "If it's not much to ask, of course. We won't be making any trouble."

Shepard spared a glance at Miranda, who shrugged her shoulders. Jacob was about to say something, but the commander had already opened his mouth to talk to the leader.

"We could take you with us back to Triton Station, but we aren't staying there for long. My acquaintance here had briefed me about a new ship I was being placed in command of. There, we probably have some room for the three-"

"Four." The leader corrected, a bit of force into his voice.

"_Four_, of you inside. Now tell me, do you know anything about what happened in the past few years, or what happened here?"

The leader looked to his teammate, who shook her head. "Like I told you, I'll tell you everything we know once we have the proper place." He said, as he checked over his weapon, subconsciously letting Shepard on that he's getting impatient.

"I could have the Illusive Man to send some men from Triton to salvage your aircraft and collect your dead." Miranda interposed. "Once we're onboard our ship, you're free to dispose of-"

"No. Absolutely not." The leader stated. "No one's going to salvage our Skyranger _or _the equipment inside it. It's in no condition to fly, so we're blowing it up after we take every piece of tech we could carry."

"Are you sure about that?" Miranda's tone became a bit low, letting the soldier know that she didn't like his statement. "My organization, Cerberus, would put your tech to good use, protecting-"

"Out of the question, ma'am." The soldier adamantly answered. "It's every agent's duty to prevent capture of Ethereal or reverse-engineered Ethereal technology by any non-XCOM personnel. Don't think you can convince me, I've already got my mind set."

"_XCOM_, eh? You work for an organization called XCOM, is that right?" Shepard asked, folding his arms across his chest. "What does it stand for?"

The leader looked to his teammate again, who made an 'I'm not here!' gesture. He sighed, seemingly cursing himself for slipping his tongue.

"Damn it. It's classified, I can't tell you anything." He said. "Look, can we just move to that ship of yours? I've already set the charges on the Skyranger to trigger in a few minutes, so we _should_ get moving."

Miranda looked very frustrated at the lack of the answers that she needed, and from the look of his eyes behind his fully enclosed helmet, Shepard too.

Suddenly, the leader's gauntlet issued a series of pings. He hesitated for a moment before pushing a button on the side of his helmet. As soon as the button is pressed, someone's voice could be heard, asking for assistance.

"-Taking heavy small-arms fire! Being overrun by-" A wave of static drowned out the words. It resurfaced after a few seconds. "-nobane Squad, if you can hear me, find me in Gallagher! I'm in-" A heavier wave of static completely distorted the audio, making it inaudible. Over the static, one could hear the unmistakable sound of gunfire and explosions.

Shepard was quite familiar with distress calls, and this sort of distress call often meant that whoever sent that call must already be dead now. It's either that or it's a fake call used to lure in unsuspecting rescuers into a trap.

"That's Fischer." The second soldier said.

"Yeah, looks like we'll have to go and find this Gallagher Street again." He replied before turning to Shepard. "Would you people happen to have a map of the area? We've already scouted ahead, but we can't seem to find Gallagher."

"You're off to Gallagher Street, too? That's good, because we're heading over there as well." Shepard said. "You should come along with us, we could always use extra rifles."

The leader nodded affirmative. "Lead the way, then."

"Colonel!" The third soldier's voice from the distance caused everyone to turn to his direction. Shepard, Miranda and Jacob found themselves coldly surprised when they noticed the cyborg they fought earlier trailing behind him, his damaged left leg having undergone visible makeshift repairs, with the damages to the canister on his back back still untouched.

"Colonel, I've managed to get Alexei back on his feet, but his E.P. generator will need some extensive repairs before we could get it zappin' again."

The leader inspected the mech with an aside glance before focusing back to Shepard's group. "We haven't introduced ourselves yet, so listen up, I'm making it brief. I'm Colonel Graves." He looked to his other teammates, gesturing to the second, the third, and finally, the cyborg.

"This is Captain Bouchard, the squad's second-in-command and medic, Lieutenant Conagher, the squad's tech expert and combat engineer, and Sergeant Dmitriyev, the MEC Trooper you nearly turned into scrap beforehand."

The MEC pilot's domed helmet slid up. Besides the noticeable cybernetic implants welded into his face, the evident exhausted features and the plethora of gnarly scars abound it, the MEC Trooper's face looks human enough, if a little too pale. Shepard can see the edges of his lips turn upwards into a cold smile. The commander was expecting him to speak, but no words left Dmitriyev.

"He's fresh outta Russia." Lieutenant Conagher informed, his tendril resting itself on his armored shoulder. "He can't speak English, but I already told him that your fight earlier was a mistake. He said he's sorry that he killed off most of your friends."

"We heard him speak earlier. Our 'tools translated his words for us." Miranda told the engineer.

"What?" Sergeant Dmitriyev's coarse, robotic voice entered the fray. "You understood what I said earlier?"

"Yeah." Shepard responded nonchalantly. "In my case, it's because I speak your language too. Miranda and Jacob's translators did the work for them."

The MEC Trooper's features showed surprise. He opened his mouth, as if he was about to talk, but he decided against it, resorting instead to falling silent once more.

The commander furrowed his eyebrows at this peculiar group of soldiers before he went back to his objective. "Alright, here's the local map," He held a holographic key on his omni-tool, which brought up an orange-tinted map of Freedom's Progress. "Here's where we are, and here's Gallagher Street. The path should lead us through several habs, through several groups of the colony's defense mechs. They shouldn't be hostile, so there's nothing to worry about." The commander removed his finger on the key, and the hologram dissipated. "Everyone ready? Let's get moving."

* * *

**Simmons Family Hab, Freedom's Progress, 20:52 TCUT**

Moments later, present time...

Shepard's words about having 'nothing to worry about' rang true, but not in the way he envisioned. He said there was going to be groups of security mechs they will encounter, but they happen to be strangely missing. The XCOM soldiers trailing behind his group occasionally stopped walking to behold the desolation that is Freedom's Progress, but so far, they haven't said anything. To Shepard's experienced eyes, he knew they had their helmet's speakers disabled so they could talk to one another via radio without having him or Miranda to listen. They could be planning to either attack him and his two Cerberus escorts while their backs are turned, or they could be just confused about what's going on, and preferred to keep to people who were familiar to them, not a trio of strangers.

The commander had just passed a certain threshold on the front porch of a hab they needed to go through. The door automatically folded open, and to his surprise, a group of quarians are revealed to be behind it, with a hulking brute of an armored human among them, tending to another human. Shepard instantly noticed that, from the looks of his armor, he and the other human are from XCOM as well.

As soon as the door opened, Miranda and Jacob had already advanced and taken up firing positions, as well as Colonel Graves' group sans the MEC Trooper, who was too large to get inside.

The quarians, upon seeing Miranda and Jacob's uniforms, also scrambled into position, menacingly training each and every one of their weapons onto Shepard and his mixed Cerberus and XCOM unit. The armored human stood up and stared at the other humans on the other side of the room, near the doorway.

"Stop right there!" One of the quarians commanded.

Shepard only wanted to ask questions, but the quarians looked more and more aggressive. He primed his cloak for use, when one of them appeared to have the courage to put herself between him and the lead quarian, arms outstretched in an attempt to prevent the inevitable.

"Prazza, you said you'd let me handle this!" She said.

_That voice._ The commander experienced a rush of images from the past two years, back when he was tracking Saren, the rogue turian Spectre. He could remember letting an alien, an enthusiastic quarian, into his ranks. Instantly, Shepard's grip on his rifle slackened. He sighed and adopted a passive stance, his weapon no longer pointed at the aliens.

The quarian turned her head to look at Shepard and his men for the first time. Shepard nearly chuckled when he saw her get promptly rooted to the ground when she finally identified him, still standing with a cocksure pose as if he didn't spaced.

"Wait… _Shepard_?" Tali mustered all of her strength to speak.

Shepard was about to speak as well, to greet his former comrade, but the XCOM colonel beat him to it.

"Xenobane Squad, fire when ready!" Graves screamed, with audible fury and hatred lacing his voice.

Shepard, Miranda and Jacob whirled around and found the colonel and his men already halfway to pulling the trigger on their rifles. Bouchard and Conagher were all too ready to comply with their commander, and judging from Dmitriyev's reply through the radio, the MEC Trooper's just waiting for his leader's prompt to blow a hole into the hab's walls just so he could get inside.

"Halt! Xenobane Squad, stand down!" The armored human standing with the quarians shouted back to the colonel. From his accent, Shepard perceived him to be of German descent.

The colonel seemed to snap out of his fury when he saw his counterpart. "Fischer? What the hell are you doing there?! You've got goddamn X-rays all around you, get over here if you don't wanna get blasted!"

"No! These ones aren't hostile, damn it! There aren't any Ethereals-"

Graves cut Fischer off abruptly. "Xenobane, shoot the X-rays. Check your damn fire, Echo Two's being mindjacked."

"No one's going to shoot anyone." Shepard's squad had already trained their weapons at Colonel Graves and his soldiers. "I don't know what's your problem with quarians, but I'm gonna have to ask you to stand down. _Now_."

* * *

**20:58 TCUT**

Tali couldn't believe her eyes, or her ears. Standing right in front of her, arguing with the strangers he brought and commanding his own squad of Cerberus operatives is her old squad leader and friend, the deceased Commander Shepard.

She was just about to ask him how he came to be alive, after vanishing for two years, but for some strange reason, the three strangers he brought in with him adopted combat stances, seemingly preparing for an attack. As usual for his personality, Shepard immediately tried to defuse the situation with words, but he was wise to put some force into his actions.

While Shepard tried to reason with the leader of the strangers, Tali trudged up to the human her group encountered earlier, Heinrich.

"Heinrich?" The quarian mechanic whispered to the major, just loud enough to be heard by him over the other voices. "I observed that your armor has the same pattern and design as those people had. Who are they?"

Heinrich shook his head and sighed. "That's Xenobane Squad, another squad that was assigned by our commander to work with my squad."

With a name like 'Xenobane' as their squad name, Tali already took a disliking to the three strangers. "Go on."

The human took a quick glance at the scene in front of them before coming back to his conversation. "From where I came from, a person who hated aliens is a common thing – hell, it's even encouraged. The man in charge of Xenobane, Colonel Michael Graves, absolutely hates aliens. Do you see those two heads he had clipped to his belt?"

Tali spared a glance at the colonel's belt. She quickly averted her eyes when she saw the two objects Heinrich was talking about. "I haven't seen a species like that before. Looks repulsive."

Heinrich chuckled lightly. "Yes, they do. And I think it's for the best that you haven't yet. Those are Ethereals; the most powerful of the extraterrestrial forces my organization has encountered. I heard Graves personally subdued those two before mindfraying them to death, deliberately disobeying the commander's orders to bring them in alive."

"He did _what?_ 'Mindfray' them to death?" Tali asked incredulously. "Is that some sort of military code word for a specific type of torture?"

"What?" Heinrich tilted his head to look at Tali. "Oh."

Normally, he'd hated sharing XCOM's secrets, but right now, if Dr. Vahlen's correct, he's out of a job.

"This badge," He gestured to the purple badge pinned to his chestplate. "It signifies my status as a Gifted Category Beta Minus individual. Colonel Graves and Captain Bouchard also had the same badge, and they're Categories Alpha Minus and Gamma Plus, respectively. Keep in mind that Graves has the second-highest ranking for Gifted operatives."

"That… doesn't make any sense." Tali admitted, giving Heinrich a confused look from behind her visor.

Heinrich was about to explain further, when Prazza finally snapped after prolonged exposure to Cerberus operatives.

"Enough of this! 'Zorah, two of the humans are with Cerberus, we must take advantage of the situation to take Veetor away while they're still arguing."

"I'm not leaving without getting a decent answer as to why Shepard's still alive, Prazza." Tali curtly responded. "Please, this means a lot to me."

But the quarian marine would not have any of it. He was just about to order his soldiers to follow him out of the hab when he unexpectedly found Heinrich's gauntleted hand on his shoulder. Prazza tried to shake the appendage off, but it was on his shoulder like a vice grip, plus it felt like it weighed as much as a block of solid steel.

"Prazza, Tali's your commanding officer for a reason, even if I don't know a single thing about your race's military ranks." The human said. his voice having a whispering, hypnotic tinge. "She probably knows best on what to do right now, and mutinying just because you don't like how she's leading your squad isn't going to make matters any better for everyone."

Tali wasn't in the mood for another fight, and it appears that another one was about to erupt between Prazza and Heinrich.

To her surprise, Prazza didn't lash out. In fact, his posture seems much calmer and less belligerent.

"Yes… maybe you're right." The quarian marine's voice was eerily relaxed, bordering on a monotone. "We'll follow 'Zorah's lead, as you say."

"_Danke_, _schwachkopf_." Heinrich released his grip on the quarian's shoulder before turning to look at Tali once more.

"You… you did something to him." Tali observed as she peered into the human's yellow visor, which had two glowing purple dots positioned exactly where his eyes should be. "You've just met him and he doesn't normally listen to anyone, and yet you talked him down. What did you do?"

"Erm, a little bit of mind-control, to be honest." Heinrich answered. "Don't worry, the effects are temporary, and he'll probably have no memory of what happened."

The quarian mechanic couldn't find herself to say anything. _Mind control? Mindfray? These humans have the ability to influence minds? No, no. Impossible. This is all too ridiculous to believe._ She thought. _I'll have to find out how he did that later when I had my talk with Shepard._

* * *

**21:04** **TCUT**

By now, Shepard had resolved the situation peacefully with the XCOM soldiers by threatening to leave them behind in the colony. It took the commander every ounce of his skill with manipulation and subtlety to coax Colonel Graves to see reason and stand down. He even gave him and his men a small history lesson of the galaxy to help them understand that aliens are just like humans. However, so far, they haven't told Shepard a single thing about where they came from, and how they came to view aliens in such a hateful, malicious light.

"Argh, I can't believe I'm saying this, but… lower your weapons, men. No hostiles in play…" Graves took a deep breath. Unknown to Shepard and his two squadmates, more than once did he try to assume control of the commander's mind, but for some reason, he shrugged off every attempt like they were nothing. "Well, for now."

"Now that that's settled, we should ask the quarians why they're here, commander." Miranda suggested. "A group of aliens in a human colony can't be good."

"If I hear one more xenophobic remark…" The commander mumbled before composing himself once more.

"Commander Shepard?"

Shepard turned to the synthesized voice behind him, and found Tali.

"Shepard, is that… is it really you?" She asked.

The commander removed the rebreather and the visor attached to his helmet, exposing his weathered features. "It's me, Tali. You remember that geth data I gave you years ago? Did it help you complete your Pilgrimage?"

"Yes… yes it did." She answered.

"That's Commander Shepard?" One of the quarian marines asked, with a bit of doubt in her voice. "Why's your old captain working for Cerberus?"

Tali considered the marine's words. "Shepard wouldn't fake his death and disappear for two years just to work for terrorists. There must be a good reason why he's working for them." From the sound of her tone, Shepard knew she couldn't quite believe it was really himself standing before her. He found himself slightly offended.

"Hey, I'm not working _for_ Cerberus. I'm working _with _them." He reattached his rebreather and his visor back to his helmet. "I died after I got spaced, and Cerberus spent a whole lot of credits just to bring me back. In exchange, they asked me to investigate these disappearances in human fringe colonies." He explained, a little but more forceful than he intended."

"Likely story." Another one of the quarians said, derision clear in his voice. "No organization would spend so much just to bring back _one_ soldier, no matter how well-funded they are."

"You haven't seen the commander in action, Niko." Tali responded disdainfully. "Trust me, it was money well spent." She then turned to Shepard once again.

"Perhaps we could work together," The quarian suggested. "We're looking for one of our own named Veetor'Nara. He was last seen here on Pilgrimage."

The commander furrowed his eyebrows. "Isn't that a little strange? A quarian visiting a secluded human colony?"

"We quarians can choose where we please to go on Pilgrimage. Veetor liked the idea of helping out a small settlement. He was always erm, nervous, in crowds." Tali explained. "I know it does seem like an unusual trait for a quarian to possess."

"What she means is that Veetor's unstable." One of the taller marines stated straightforwardly. "Paired with the damage done to his suit's CO2 scrubbers, and an infection from an open air exposure, and he's most likely not right in the head right now."

"Well," Tali began to explain. "When he saw us landing, he fled to a warehouse on the far side of town. He'd already programmed the defense mechs to attack anything that moved, but with Heinrich's help,"

Shepard tilted his head from Tali to the human amongst the quarians. The commander was legendary for his Holmes-esque ability of getting detailed information of people with just a quick glance, but unfortunately, the man's helmet prevented him from penetrating his defenses. All he could tell is that he's absolutely _enormous_, and he's hefting an equally enormous, backpack-fed, minigun-like contraption_. _Compared to Dmitriyev's massive frame, Heinrich still is a little bit dwarfed, but at least he doesn't look puny compared to the MEC Trooper.

"We killed off most of the mechs. Now, we only have to worry about the missile drones near the warehouse." Tali finished.

"Hmm. Veetor's the only person in this colony to live to see another day. He's the only one who can tell us what happened here. We need our teams to work together to find him."

The quarian nodded. "Good idea. You've already got two teams, but with our support, we can smash through the mechs much easier."

"Wait, now we're working with terrorists?" A spindly-looking marine disbelievingly asked. "I thought a 'Zorah would've known better!"

"No, Rohm. You're working for Prazza, and he's working for _me_." Tali retorted. "Isn't that right, Prazza?"

Heinrich slanted his head to the right.

"Yes, _Tali_. Whatever you say." Prazza's disturbing monotone persisted.

Tali, with a triumphant smirk behind her helmet, turned to Shepard. "Head for the warehouse through the center of the colony. We'll circle around the side and draw off some of the drones to clear you a path."

"Good plan, Tali." Shepard unslung his weapon out. "Make sure to keep in radio contact, and… since I've already got myself a-"

The hab's metallic walls near the door collapsing cut Shepard off. When the dust settled, the MEC Trooper's form could be found, still retracting his rocket-fist. To everyone's flat stares, he could only respond, "What? It was lonely outside. I figured I'd shout at someone too."

Graves, Bouchard and Conagher could only roll their eyes. The quarians all asked a variation of 'what did he say?' or 'what is _that_?' Miranda and Jacob dusted themselves off.

"Like I said," Shepard continued. "I've already got myself an overabundance of soldiers, so you can take Jacob and Miranda with you. Figured you could use some biotic support."

"No, thanks." Tali immediately responded. "I'd like to keep myself as far away from Cerberus as possible. We'll manage."

The quarian then turned to Heinrich, who was just about to pick his unconscious teammate from the floor.

"Oh, and by the way, you should take a look at her." Tali gestured to Claudia. "I don't know much about human physiology, but I think she's really hurt. Get her to a doctor soon."

Shepard spared a glance at the two soldiers. "We will. Come on, we've got an objective to take."

* * *

**21:14 TCUT**

Heinrich walked along the path to the target quarian with his fellow XCOM operatives. He reminded himself to thank Commander Shepard for leaving one of his own to evacuate the wounded Claudia. In a way, he was glad to be back with familiar faces, but then he remembered that if he strayed too far from Tali's group, his mind link with Prazza will be severed, and he'll be back to his uncooperative, hot-headed self. It can be assured that he'll try to assume command of his squad once more.

"Fischer. What the hell were you doing back there?"

Heinrich sighed. He was expecting Graves to have him spill his guts out, but not this early.

"Those aliens saved me and Claudia from a whole street full of hostile robots. I didn't reveal anything important, if that's what you're asking."

"No, I'm not asking you _that_. One of them had one of _our_ alloy cannons on its person. I can only assume that you gave one to it."

_Scheiße._ Heinrich cursed internally. He had completely forgotten about the shotgun he gave to Tali, and now, he's about to catch a real tongue-lashing from Graves. Technically, there's a rule in XCOM that sometimes requires an operative to provide a piece of XCOM's technology to forces that still haven't had access to Ethereal tech in order to turn the tide against the extraterrestrial invasion. Sometimes, he'd give a spare plasma pistol or a worn out arc thrower to hapless, under-equipped soldiers, but with no Ethereals in sight, the rule has gone defunct.

"Well? What's your excuse?" Graves prodded on.

"I gave an alloy cannon to _it_," Heinrich knew full well on how Graves violently reacted to people calling the aliens something other than 'it'. "Because I noticed that it did not have a weapon in hand. I observed that it apparently had a really precise aim with a shotgun."

"You _idiot._" Graves spat out. "You gave an _X-ray_ a piece of XCOM-issue equipment?"

"I did." Heinrich stated simply, having predicted that no good can come from being deceptive. "I made a tactical decision, and it paid off. Hell, I think it even deserved its own alloy cannon, saving both of our lives like that."

"Listen, you stupid fucking Kraut," Graves grabbed hold of Heinrich's armored collar, pulling him close so that they stood faceplate-to-faceplate. "I don't care what the hell your reasons are. I'm ordering you to retrieve that alloy cannon from it, even if you'd have to _mindfuck_ it to death and pry the damn thing off its claws. Do you hear me, Fischer?!"

So far, Bouchard, Conagher and Dmitriyev stayed out of the two soldiers' conversation, but now, Bouchard appeared to be priming her arc thrower.

To avoid being electrocuted, Heinrich smashed his already damaged faceplate into Graves'. The impact was so strong that the colonel was knocked off his feet.

"As far as I know, there's no more XCOM, _colonel_. Or should I just call you 'Michael', or 'Graves' now?" Heinrich said in between breaths, just as Graves picked himself up. "Only Claire can order _me_ around, and she's dead. I'm my own man now."

"Hey!" Shepard and Miranda arrived a little too late when they heard the deafening clunk that shattered the silence. "What the hell is going on out here?"

"Nothing, goddammit!" Graves barked at Shepard. He brushed himself off before walking forwards once more. "Move out, Xenobane!" The colonel tapped into his radio and poured every bit of vitriol he could muster in his voice. "I'll have your head for that, Fischer."

Heinrich sighed. "Try if you must. You're going mad with that grudge of yours."

A distorted growl from Graves was what Heinrich heard as his response.

* * *

**21:17 TCUT**

"I don't recommend bringing Colonel Graves with us, commander." Miranda voiced through her radio to Shepard. "He's too unstable for my liking."

"Yeah, he's a bit more of a racist than those Terra Firma spokespeople, and that's a compliment." Shepard quipped. "But I keep my promises. We'll take him back to Triton, where him and his men can hitch a ride to Earth, if that's what he wants."

"Your call, commander." Was all Miranda said before she cut comms. Shepard continued moving towards the objective when his radio came back to life.

"…Commander Shepard?" A new voice entered Shepard's radio channel. "Is this the right channel?"

The commander recognized it. "Ah, Captain Bouchard. Is there something you need?"

"Well… yes." With a sigh, the captain spoke, "I'd like to apologize for Michael's behavior. Take my word for it; he's a lot more reasonable and even-tempered when he's around us humans. When you forced him to work with aliens, I think he didn't take it well."

"I take it that you don't like aliens as well?" Shepard's words formed out of his mouth faster than he could suppress it.

"I can't say I do." Bouchard admitted reluctantly. "Where we came from, the only good thing they brought with them is their technology, which our scientists had reverse-engineered for our own use.

"Hey, uh, Commander Shepard?" Another new voice entered the channel. "Don't let the colonel's belligerence get to ya. That's his way of coping with being the only survivor of an SAS unit overtaken by Chryssalids."

"Lieutenant Conagher, right?" In response, Conagher made a humming sound. Shepard continued, "You said Graves was with the SAS, as in the obsolete British special forces group back in the 20th, 21st and early 22nd centuries, correct?"

"If it helps, it stood for 'Special Air Service', commander. We wouldn't know anything about history here." Bouchard answered.

"Huh, so you really are time travellers, but I didn't see soldiers from a hundred and a half years ago running around with energy weapons and powered armor, trying to push back an alien invasion back in history class."

"Commander, this is Heinrich." And another voice joined in.

Shepard nearly laughed. He was convinced that soon, his channel will become a full-fledged 'idle conversations' channel. "Major Heinrich, I've got Bouchard and Conagher on the line as well, but I'm always willing to listen. You've got something you need to talk about?"

"Yes, commander." The major took a deep breath. "You see, if you asked Graves where all of us came from, he'll most likely say it's classified, or something similar. Fortunately for you, I don't believe that the Council of Nations are still around to court-martial me for revealing 'classified' information."

"What, like you're time travellers or something?" Shepard facetiously proposed.

"Not exactly, commander." Bouchard said. "We're from a parallel univ-"

"Missile drones are inbound on your position, Shepard!" Tali's voice entered the channel.

This time, Shepard actually laughed. "Why is it that when someone's gonna say something important, something dangerous happens?" He remarked. "Anyway, let's cut this conversation short for now. We'll have the rest of it back at Triton."

With that, the commander cut comms.

* * *

**21:22 TCUT**

Shepard leaned adjacent to the wall. He ordered Miranda to take cover on the other side, while the XCOM operatives took cover wherever they can. Tali reported that her squad of marines mutinied against her and went straight for Veetor's hideout with reckless abandon. To their misfortune, an YMIR heavy mech and about two dozen LOKI security mechs stood guard in front of the hideout doors.

"Open the doors, Tali!" Shepard shouted through his radio. "Your squad isn't going to last much longer out there!"

The doors to the warehouse complex swiftly slid open, and as expected, the quarian marines were being wiped across the floor by the synthetics.

"_Au__ßerirdische schwachkopf…_" Heinrich muttered to himself.

Instantly, Graves had already ordered Bouchard and Conagher to draw fire from the YMIR while they thinned the LOKI ranks. Since he's such a large target, Dmitriyev stood behind the wall while he waited for the order to go.

Shepard picked off a mech whenever he can while trying to stay unseen, while Miranda and Heinrich coordinated their attacks to put down a group of clustered mechs.

By the time the LOKI mechs are almost completely wiped out, the MEC Trooper had already begun his sprint towards the heavy mech. He raised his gigantic gauntlet to shield himself from the YMIR's mass accelerator cannons. Once he was close enough, Dmitriyev pummelled the mech to the ground with one swift strike of his KSM, flattening its chest. To prevent the mech from standing up, Dmitriyev clamped down on its torso with a giant, ironclad foot before finishing it off with a point blank particle cannon blast to the head. By now, the MEC trooper knew that destroying an YMIR mech always triggered a sizable explosion, so he safely avoided the following blast by retreating to a safe distance.

Shepard set the last of the mechs to overload explosively. He could only grumble angrily when he found that only a couple of quarian marines survived. "Right, that's the last. Xenobane, stay here. Heinrich, guard the door. Miranda, with me. Let's get our quarian."

Before he opened the door to Veetor, Shepard opened a comm link to Bouchard. "Captain, I heard you're a medic. If you've got some spare medical supplies, can you do me a favor and help Tali out with the wounded? I understand if you refuse, but who knows, they might get a good impression of you, unlike your CO."

"Um, err… I'll see what I can do, commander." The captain responded back. "Michael isn't going to like this."

The commander cut comms and opened the door, revealing Veetor'Nara sitting in front of a wall of display screens displaying some distorted footage of _something_. As expected, the quarian was in the middle of a bout of delirium and paranoia.

"Monsters coming back. Mechs will protect. Safe from swarms. Have to hide. No monsters, no swarms. Nonononono." He babbled.

"Veetor?" Shepard called out, but the quarian remained seemingly uncaring of the commander his Cerberus escort's presence. He continued tapping away at a holographic keyboard, seemingly for no reason at all.

"No Veetor. Not here, swarms can't find me. Monsters coming. Have to hide." Veetor continued gibbering.

_Now, how the hell am I gonna get this kid to pay attention to _me? Shepard pondered. _Ah, downers. You're a freakin' genius, brain. I swear, getting spaced made you a lot smarter._

"Captain Bouchard? Still there?"

A small wave of static washed over the radio before Bouchard's voice emerged. "I've given an alien a couple of spare canisters of Medmist, her name's Tali, I think. I even had to explain to her how to apply them." She reported quite enthusiastically. "Anyway, is there something you need, commander?"

"Have you got some sedatives with you?" Shepard asked. "I've got a delirious quarian here, and I need him to stop acting like a hyperactive salarian and talk to me."

A minute of listening to Veetor babble like a newborn child later, the door behind Miranda folded open, revealing the captain, clutching something that looked like a cube on a pistol grip.

"Where's this alien?" She asked.

"What's that, the sedatives?" Miranda inquired.

"It's called an arc thrower. If you need an alien electrocuted non-fatally for capture and interrogatio-"

Shepard laughed. "No, I don't need Veetor electrocuted. I just need something to alleviate his delirium so he could talk. Have you got something like that?"

"Aha, well… no." Bouchard stated. "Not in a traditional sense, but I've got something that could be used as a substitute."

For some reason, the captain removed her helmet, revealing her face. It seems that it was common for XCOM operatives to have exhausted-looking, drawn-out features. Yet, despite this, Captain Bouchard still looked sharp, even if she looked like she's going to pass out any minute now. She took out a pair of glasses from a side satchel and perched them on her eyes.

"This is Veetor, no?" She gestured to the feverish quarian.

"Yes, captain." Miranda answered. "What are you planning?"

"This might look unusual." Was Bouchard's only answer.

Captain Bouchard reached for her temple, like she's having a headache. Her eyes, which were a blurry green in one second, suddenly took on a glowing purple hue. She then slowly outstretched her hand to Veetor, like she was reaching out for him.

Almost instantly, the quarian stood up from his seat, just as Bouchard's eyes returned to their original color.

"Veetor?" Shepard called out once more, after he regained his composure after seeing Bouchard's glowing eyes. "Are you alright?"

The quarian turned around. "You're… you're human! How come they didn't find you?"

"Who didn't find us?" Miranda queried.

"The monsters, the swarms. They took everyone." Strange, it appears that Veetor's tone is much more coherent than what a person would expect from a sick quarian. "The colonists were taken by monsters. They didn't fight back because they were… paralyzed.

With that said, Veetor programmed the screens behind him to play the colony's security footage, which looked much more clear now.

"What is _that_?" Shepard asked, to no one in particular at what he saw. It appeared to be a group of insect-like humanoids, hauling off the paralyzed humans into strange pods.

"My God. That's a Collector, Shepard." Miranda, after a moment's pause, answered.

"I thought the Collectors kept to themselves."

"They typically do, but if they needed something, they usually work through intermediaries, like slavers or hired mercenaries." Miranda informed. "If they're involved with the Reapers somehow, it could explain what happened to the colonies."

"Don't they have some really high-tech weaponry, like some sort of device that disables entire colonies at one go?"

"That's mostly based on rumors, Shepard. Unless we get to personally encounter them, I think we'll never know."

Shepard sighed gravely. "What happened next, Veetor?"

"The monsters took the people onto their ship, and they left. The ship just flew away like they've done this before. That's all I saw."

Miranda huffed. "I think that's all we can learn out of him, Shepard."

Shepard nodded. "We appreciate your help, Veetor. You've been quite helpful."

"Wait, commander." Veetor brought up his omni-tool. "I studied them, the swarms. I recorded them with my omni-tool. I've detected a lot of readings; electromagnetic and dark energy, mostly."

Suddenly, Miranda's attention went from Shepard's scars, to Veetor once more. "Good. We're going to need that data for the Illusive Man. We need you to come with us to the shuttle for… questioning."

The door to Veetor's hideout folded open, and in came Tali. "What? Veetor's injured! He needs treatment, not an interrogation!"

"We won't do anything harmful." Miranda said, with a hint of disdain in her voice. "We just need to see if he knows anything else. After that, we'll bring him back to the Migrant Fleet, good as new."

A fleeting pause later, Miranda continued. "Your people tried to betray us once already. If we give him to you, we'll never get the intel we need."

Tali heaved a frustrated sigh. "Prazza was an idiot. If it weren't for the extra hands Shepard brought, even his men might've paid for his stupidity. You're free to take Veetor's omni-tool data but _please,_ just let me take him!"

"I did a scan on him with my sweeper glasses." Bouchard said, walking over next to the quarian. "Your species' biological construct is quite different compared to humans, but I recognized enough to know that he's traumatized, and he needs immediate medical care."

"Thank you, captain. Miranda, we'll take Veetor's omni-tool data, and Tali can take him to the flotilla." Shepard said.

"Understood, commander…" Was all the Cerberus operative could say, letting enough venom into her voice to let Shepard know that she didn't like his decision.

"Thank you, Shepard." Tali said, quite relieved at how the situation turned out. "I'm glad you're the one still giving the orders. Good luck out there. If I find anything that can help you, I'll let you know. Like always."

Tali then turned to Captain Bouchard. "I think I may have misjudged you, Elise. Thank you for your help earlier. I owe you and Heinrich a lot." The quarian then took Veetor by the shoulder and left the hab.

"Hah, that went well." Shepard said, feeling a little bit better despite having just come back from the dead. "Miranda, call the shuttle. Tell them to land another one too; I don't think putting a giant cyborg with us in the shuttle is a good idea."

* * *

**March 30th, Triton Station, 00:57 TCUT**

The Illusive Man's holographic figure appeared on his usual spot, a cigarette in one hand, and a shot of alcohol in another.

"Shepard. Good work on Freedom's Progress." He took a drag out of his cigarette. "The quarians forwarded their findings from Veetor's debriefing. No new data, but it's a surprising olive branch, given our history. You and I have different methods, but I can't argue with your results."

Shepard leaned on one foot. "You ever think about trying to make nice once in a while?"

"Diplomacy is great when it works, but difficult when everyone already perceives you as a threat. But more importantly, you confirmed the Collectors are behind the abductions in human colonies."

Shepard folded his arms. "Why do I get the feeling that you knew about them already?"

"I had my suspicions. I needed proof, and the Collectors are enigmatic at best." The Illusive Man took another drag. "They periodically travel to the Terminus Systems, looking for seemingly unimportant items or specimens. More usually in exchange for their technology. When their transactions are complete, they disappeared as quickly as they arrived, back to the Omega 4 Relay. Until now, we have no evidence of direct aggression by the Collectors."

The commander shifted his glance to the sun behind the Illusive Man briefly. "You're holding something back. How do you know the Reapers are involved, anyway?"

"The patterns are there, buried in the data. The Council and the Alliance wanted everyone to believe that the Reaper threat died with Sovereign. You and I know better. I won't wait until the Reapers are on the march. We need to take the fight to them."

The commander suddenly got a brilliant idea. "If this is a war, then I'll need an army. Unfortunately, I'm not really trained for sitting pretty in a desk and issuing orders to soldiers I can't see." He leaned forwards. "I need a small group of specialists, the best in their fields."

The Illusive Man nodded. "I've already compiled a list of soldiers, scientists and mercenaries. You'll get dossiers on the best of them and," His mouth formed into a wry smirk. "I think I've already found at least six soldiers for your team of specialists."

"Yeah, I was with them in Freedom's Progress." Shepard confirmed. "They're one of the most highly trained and better-equipped soldiers you could find in this side of the galaxy. I have just one problem, though."

"I've seen your helmet's combat recorder," The Illusive Man said. "Each of the four remaining members of this… 'Xenobane Squad' possess some degree of innate hostility and contempt for aliens, especially the leader, Colonel Graves. However, I can't deny that he makes for a good squad leader, as exemplified by his high rank. Do what you can to convince them to join you, commander. From what I've seen, convincing them alone could be challenging, but you're a natural leader."

"Also if you do manage to convince them, which I have no doubts that you'll do, remember that they _are_ from a parallel universe." The Illusive Man added. "They might eventually have second thoughts about your mission in favor of formulating a plan to go back to where they came from, but you must never forget that you've got a bigger task in hand, and their help would be invaluable."

Shepard nodded half-heartedly. "You worry about the Collectors. I'll make sure my team's ready."

The Illusive Man once again inhaled a drag. "Good. Two things before you go. First, head to Omega and find Dr. Mordin Solus. He's a brilliant salarian scientist. Our intel suggests that he may be able to provide a way to counteract the Collectors' paralyzing seeker swarms."

"Alright," Shepard, having no other options to take, resignedly said. "And the other thing is?"

"I found a pilot I think you might like. I hear he's one of the best," The Illusive Man reached for his console, to cut off his feed. "Someone you could _trust_."

The holographic figure dematerialized, and Shepard found himself back at Triton's familiar dull white walls.

"Hey, commander."

Shepard turned around, and found the last human being he ever saw during his first life's zenith.

"Just like old times, huh?"

* * *

_As an added note, all of the OCs depicted in this fic are 'real' operatives (they were actually in a Classic Ironman game, with slightly different names). They served me extremely well, and I've grown attached to them, so I gave them personalities, backgrounds and stuff. Special thanks to my dog, Admiral Kunkka. Who's a good widdle magic sword wielding doggie? Who's a good- oh, crap! _

_Extra note: If you happen to find some grammatical errors, let me know. I did this on a rush. Thank you._

_Extra extra note: This might be updated monthly. Might._

_LATE DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT, IN ANY WAY, OWN THE XCOM FRANCHISE OR THE MASS EFFECT FRANCHISE. THEY BELONG TO 2K AND BIOWARE, RESPECTIVELY. ALSO, I AM NOT MAD. MERELY SHOCKED AT MYSELF FOR FORGETTING ABOUT THIS._


	2. II: Hunkering Down

**Chapter II: Hunkering Down**

* * *

**Triton Station, S-002: Medbay, March 30****th****, 2185, 08:32 Terran Coordinated Universal Time**

Lieutenant Claudia's eyes shot open. In fast, fluid motions, she sat up from her bed and regarded her environment.

White, sterile walls surrounded her. Strange holographic computers and state-of-the-art medical equipment were the most common objects in the room, and on the far left corner, her own Mk. II Ghost-pattern Stealth Exoframe sat on a platform, its dark blue paint slightly tarnished from the abuses it has been subjected to over the years. On the other corner of the room lies her beloved ISIK-Pattern Precision Plasma Sniper Rifle, stacked neatly with other weapons in a firearm rack. In contrast to her armor, her weapon looks just as good as if it just came out of the assembly line.

The XCOM markswoman couldn't find anything in her mind to explain her presence in a hospital room. She groaned and made an effort to stand up from her bed.

Suddenly, she felt her side brush against something cold and metallic. She reached for the object and found a plasma pistol.

The memories of Operation Event Horizon came rushing into Claudia's mind. She briefly remembered being hauled by someone into a room, while the recognizable barks of gunfire and the swooshing sound of plasma discharges echoed outside.

She remembered waking up just as she heard heavy footfalls behind her room's doors and activating ghost mode.

She remembered firing upon what she identified as X-rays. They had humanoid body shapes, but she knew enough to tell that they're not really human.

She even remembered Heinrich, probably through some sort of confusion or misperception on her part, appearing out of nowhere and restraining her, taking away her means of doing her job: the elimination of any and all extraterrestrial forces. It's as if he's deliberately trying to _protect_ the aliens.

Claudia knew that Heinrich has always been too idealistic and naïve for his own good, but not in all of eternity did she envision her best and only friend preventing her from killing an alien. _Why did he do that? What is he planning? Is he being mind-controlled? No, he can't possibly be. He even talked in our language._ These lines of thinking were what dominated Claudia's mind as of now. She was only brought back to the real world when the door to her room folded open, in a fashion that she only ever saw in television.

Behind the doors stood a tall, spindly, unnervingly pale man. His head has been trimmed into a military-style crew cut and his jaw had traces of a recently shaved beard. Closer observation from Claudia revealed that the man has a hunter's eyes: gray, precise and analytic... deadly accurate. Furthermore, he also possessed more than a few subtle scars that somehow glow a dull red.

Engaged in a conversation with the man, is none other than Major Heinrich Fischer, still clad in full Titan armor, minus his helmet. In contrast to the other man, the major's face only had one large scar that stretched from his right temple and over the right end of his mouth. Claudia noticed that he looks more ragged and tired than he was back in the _Deutsches Heer_, as evidenced by his prominent five o'clock shadow and the dull sheen of his eyes. Clearly these are the effects of the missions he partook in with only about three hours of rest in between.

"-octors said that she'll be fine." The stranger said. "Although, they apparently found out that some of her genetic structures have been extensively modified."

"Yes, that's true." Heinrich responded with an enthusiastic nod. "Claudia is the most Meld-augmented operative in XCOM's history. According to our chief scientific researcher, Dr. Erika Vahlen, Claudia has literally trillions of tiny biomechanical nanomachines running around in her bloodstream, compared to just millions in my own bloodstream. She has the ability to jump ten stories in a single bound, regenerate her wounds at an extremely faster rate, have considerably faster reflexes, and-"

Claudia coughed lightly, cutting the two men's conversation shortly. They turned their heads to look at the source of the sound.

"Heinrich, you've got a lot of explaining to do." She stated, as simple as can be.

The stranger chuckled. "That he does."

* * *

**Triton Station, S-048: Shuttle Hangar Three, 10:35 TCUT**

The four members of Xenobane each carried large containers filled with all of the technology they salvaged from their wrecked Skyranger. For any human without a powered exoframe, hauling off all the equipment they're carrying can be considered impossible. Dmitriyev, having had his organic limbs voluntarily removed, had no such problems.

"Can you believe this, Elise?" The combat engineer heartily asked as he carried a container full of Elerium power cells and Kestrel plasma rifle parts on his shoulder. He was making all sorts of gestures with both of his hands, while his tendril kept the container balanced within an anti-gravity field. "It's like we're in a darned science-fiction movie, and it's happenin' for real!"

"Yes, I find all this quite hard to believe, Jim." The medic confessed as she regarded the space station's interiors. Her container, on the other hand, was housing cases of Medmist canisters and arc thrower energy cartridges. "But then again, we used to live in another universe, where we killed aliens and salvaged their technology for a living. Not to mention that you're a literal walking database, and have access to a whole range of 'fictional' technology with just your servo-arm alone."

"Hey, it was Dr. Shen's idea to put those things in my skull!" Conagher chimed in, ignoring Elise's last point. "I'll admit, having everything you need to know about Ethereal tech implanted inside your head _is_ pretty handy."

"Yes, but once both of your hearts stop beating," The MEC Trooper started. "There is not going to be enough of you to bury." The container he was carrying is twice the size of his three companions' and it was filled to the brim with assorted XCOM-issue equipment, like a few working copies of the obsolete Sunray laser rifles, a whole rifle rack's worth of the old X-9 assault rifles, enough circuitry and spare Salazarite alloys to produce a six-man squad of SHIVs and Xenobane's two fallen squad members' equipment.

The combat engineer shrugged casually. "Explodin' violently after death's a small price to pay for all the knowledge I have access to. Besides, if I _do_ die, ALL of XCOM's secrets are inside my brain for the taking, so it's kinda necessary to go out with a bang."

"Xenobane, the commander's approaching," Graves alerted his men as he carefully dropped the container he was carrying. As he was the leader, he was carrying the most important piece of XCOM reverse-engineered technology: A sealed, heavily secured canister filled with enough units of Meld to keep Alexei's old organic body from rejecting its new cybernetic frame for half a decade. "Drop your shit and stand in attention. If we're lucky, he's already forgotten about that fiasco on that planet."

"Colonel Graves," Shepard greeted. "I take it you're heading to that shuttle I told you about?"

"What else are we supposed to be doing, commander?" Graves' usual throaty rasping voice made the commander mentally shudder. "It's not like we have anything else to do here after we packed Jensen, Reed and Denton into their coffins and threw them into space, now do we?"

Shepard stiffened for a second responding back, "And what are you planning on doing in Earth?"

"I've got no bloody clue." Graves stated, his irritation is clear. "Probably going back to Leeds and see if I've got any descendants, or something. Maybe even have a great big party to celebrate how a war that didn't actually happen ended for me." The colonel took out his sidearm all of the sudden and stared at it with a thoughtful glare. "Hell, after what you said about how I can't kill aliens anymore, I might even just shoot myself in the mouth right here, right now."

"Sir?" Elise carefully stepped forward, towards her commanding officer, but Conagher stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

Shepard could barely suppress the urge to lunge at Graves, put him in a chokehold and wrench the pistol out of his hand. He was just about to ask the colonel if he's actually serious, but then he stopped glaring at his sidearm and locked it back to his armor's thigh.

"Not like I'm going to listen to the likes of you, anyway." He concluded before picking his container up. "I'll see you in hell, commander."

"Wait, colonel." Shepard blocked Graves' path, holding his hands up in a bid to have him and his squad stay a bit longer. "Instead of going to Earth, why don't you and Xenobane come with me and become part of the squad I'm trying to assemble?"

"Sorry, commander," Graves had his answer already formed up just as Shepard stopped talking. "I'm speaking for the rest of my squad here, so listen well: Xenobane is _not_ for hire." The three other members of Graves' squad shifted on their feet. It was clear that they were just as vexed as Shepard is. "I've always hated mercs, and I'm sure as hell not planning on becoming one right now. Good day." He started moving again, but Shepard was persistent.

"Now, wait a second, colonel! I'm not trying to _hire _you; I'm trying to _recruit_ you and your men for a _noble_ cause, not some dirty mercenary op. You haven't even heard what I'm trying to accomplish yet!" He nearly shouted, amazed at Graves' less-than-cooperative attitude. "All of galactic life depends on the success of what I'm trying to pull off, colonel. A whole race of synthetic-organic starships is on its way towards this galaxy as we speak, and each and every one of these starships are bent on annihilating all sentient life they encountered. They're known for being completely relentless and thorough in their purges. They're called the Reapers."

Shepard mentally exhaled a sigh of relief. He finally caught Graves' attention, as do his men. "I'm not gonna lie, this mission I'm about to undertake is classified as a suicide mission for a reason. I can't say that all of you are still going to live through this in the end, but I can promise that _if_ we can successfully pull this off, the human race – and by extension, the galaxy, will gain a firm chance of surviving in the war that will happen in the next few years."

Suddenly, Graves let out a rumbling laugh, causing the commander to furrow his eyebrows in confusion, while the three other members of Xenobane each regarded their leader with a worried look.

"I don't believe you, Shepard. And frankly, even if what you said is true, I can't find myself to give a damn." He bluntly said, after composing himself. "If it was just me you're trying to do your dirty laundry, then I'd have told you to kiss a Sectoid's arse and go to hell. But since there's four of us, I'll let my squad mates decide."

"Wow, that's… democratic of you, Graves." Shepard said, almost sarcastically.

The colonel's frown remained plastered to his face. "Don't call me Graves."

"The 'Reapers', huh?" Conagher drawled as he commanded his tendril to set his container down. "How big are they, commander?"

"That depends on the Reaper you have in mind." Shepard answered. "There are four main Reaper variants. The destroyer class is about a quarter of the size of this station, and the Sovereign class is almost three-quarters this station's si- wait, are you actually," It was then that the commander remembered that XCOM operatives have a penchant for reverse-engineering alien technology. "Oh _no_. You _do not_ want to get your hands on Reaper tech. These bastards had every little thing they own or used to own completely covered in mind-altering nanomachines. If you stay in close proximity to Reaper tech, a process called 'indoctrination' will start on your body."

"And what might 'indoctrination' be?" Dmitriyev asked. "Some kind of disease?"

"Unfortunately, no. Indoctrination is several magnitudes much worse than a simple organic disease, Sergeant Alexei Dmitriyev." A female synthesized voice asserted. Everyone tried to look for the source of the voice, but only a small terminal displaying a holographic bluish-white sphere could be found.

"Was I the only one who hea-" Shepard began, but was cut off by the voice emanating from the hologram.

"I could provide a thorough description of the indoctrination process, but I'm afraid it would set your shuttle ride to Earth back for an estimated three days." Shepard, upon hearing the sphere refer to itself as 'I', made a conclusion.

"Interesting, a true AI." He muttered. "What are you called?"

"I am designated by the Cerberus R&D team as the Enhanced Defense Intelligence. The _Normandy_ crew has taken to calling me EDI." The sphere answered straightforwardly. "I was going to introduce myself when you've boarded the _Normandy_ itself, but the Illusive Man had just recently ordered me to find you and make my introductions. He had figured you would have a whole range of uses from an artificial intelligence."

"An artificial intelligence that could actually think for itself?" Elise asked.

"That is correct, Captain Elise Bouchard." EDI replied. "I am capable of autonomous thinking, unlike the ones you have programmed into your armor."

"I wasn't sure before," Conagher said as he gawked at the sphere with wide eyes. "But now I'm definitely sure I'm dreamin' this."

"I'm afraid this is reality, Lieutenant James Conagher." The AI helpfully stated.

"Now, I'm sure this is interesting and all," Alexei uttered in his robotic, echoing voice. "But I'm afraid the commander needs to show us where we're supposed to assemble for this mission of his. This space station is getting more and more dreary for every minute we spend."

Shepard perked up. "Wait, does this mean you'll join my cause, _Alyosha_?"

The MEC Trooper laughed mechanically. "Of course. What would the people from Earth need from a man like me? I've sacrificed everything I have to protect humanity, and rusting away in some back-alley circus in Earth is not what I intend to spend the rest of my life with." Dmitriyev stepped forward, to Commander Shepard's side. "As long as I get to do what I've been augmented to do, I'll stand by your side, commander."

Conagher also stepped up. "I've got absolutely nothin' important planned. Heck, I might as well join in. Besides, as we're tryin' ta save this galaxy, there's probably plenty of opportunities for me to study and implement some very interestin' tech while we're at it."

"Since you two are in, I think it's mandatory for me to sign up as well." Elise joined Conagher and Alexei and left Graves by himself. "I know how frequent you boys get shot at, and a suicide mission is just the place where you _will_ get shot at, and I'm the one who's supposed to patch you up, back on your feet."

Graves inhaled a lungful of air. "I still think this is a bad idea, but most of my own plans are based on bad ideas anyway." The colonel slowly joined the rest of his squad, who each wore a warm grin directed at him. "Xenobane needs a squad leader who can get things done. I'm exactly that kind of person."

Shepard smiled at his new team of operatives. He was initially convinced that he's only going to be partially successful in recruiting XCOM operatives into the _Normandy_ crew, but it seems that luck or perhaps God is smiling down on him.

"Excellent work, Commander Shepard." EDI congratulated the commander in a dull, flat tone. "Major Heinrich Fischer and Lieutenant Claudia Vogel have been waiting for you in docking bay D-SRII for precisely seven minutes now, commander. If you would please follow the glowing marks on the floor," Instantly, a glowing footpath revealed itself, starting from where Shepard was standing, through the far reaches of Triton Station. "You will be directed to where they are now."

"I must remind you that the docking bay also houses the _Normandy_ _SR-2_." EDI continued. "Operative Miranda Lawson has requested that you board the ship as fast as you can."

"Thank you, uh, EDI." Shepard nodded respectfully at the AI and immediately went to follow the path, with his new specialists in tow.

* * *

"Commander!" Heinrich called out as he saw Shepard coming with Xenobane Squad trailing behind him. "We're here, as you requested. Are we boarding your ship now?" He gestured to the _Normandy _through the station's windows. The major assumed that Graves had joined in with the commander's mission as well, just like him and Claudia.

"In a few minutes, yeah. I just got Graves, Bouchard, Conagher and Dmitriyev to join us." Shepard answered eagerly. He then turned to his ship's pilot, who stood a few meters away from Echo Squad. "Joker, is the ship ready to fly?"

Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau leaned on the railings with a frown on his face. He had been trying to get the XCOM operative beside Heinrich to introduce herself, with zero success so far. "Yeah, yeah. We _should_ get moving, commander. Miranda's becoming too much of a pain to work with."

"Don't talk about the Normandy's executive officer like that, Joker." Shepard quipped sarcastically. In a way, he shared Joker's pain.

"Well, not when she's around." Joker said, rather unapologetically. "Let's go, commander. Your tour's about to start."

"Very funny, Joker." The commander remarked. "Did you know that the _Normandy's _supposed to be equipped with an AI?"

Suddenly, the wry smile on Joker's face disappeared, an annoyed grimace replacing it. "Gah, don't remind me. And I thought I'd get the _Normandy_ by herself, I should've known the deal sounded too good to be true. Anyway, we should get inside."

"Oh, and one more thing, Joker." Shepard gripped Joker's shoulder, halting his walk to the airlock door. "You remember how I ran the _SR-1_? Have you packed your long sleeves?"

Joker chuckled. "Nothing like living in a ship with an average temperature of negative fifteen degrees Celsius, commander. Of course I brought my flight jacket. I never touched it since you got spaced and the Alliance grounded me."

"Good. I wouldn't want you fidgeting over the _Normandy_'s controls like a red sand addict. The cold will make you strong." Shepard activated the airlock's decontamination process. "Who knows, it might fix your Vrolik syndrome."

Shepard, Xenobane, the last two members of Echo and Joker entered the _Normandy_ together, with Dmitriyev having noticeable difficulty because of his massive stature. Miranda and Jacob stood on the path towards the galaxy map; they have been waiting for quite a while.

Miranda, as usual, had her best 'I don't care about what's going on' face, while Jacob resorted to his usual 'smile and greet' routine.

"Shepard, Xenobane, Heinrich and Claudia, welcome aboard the new _Normandy_." The former marine received everyone with a warm greeting, while Conagher and Heinrich took some fascinated looks around the ship's CIC deck.

Miranda, going about her usual routine, only regarded everyone with a curt nod as her form of greeting before giving Shepard a report. "I've been looking over the dossiers the Illusive Man sent. I'm uncomfortable that our new squad does not have any profile dossiers to speak of, but our observations down at Freedom's Progress should have to suffice." Shepard's XO did a quick, suspicious glance at Graves and Heinrich before going back to the commander. "I'd strongly recommend acquiring Dr. Solus, the salarian professor on Omega, first. We know the Collectors use some kind of advanced technological weaponry to immobilize their victims. We'll need him to develop a countermeasure to protect us."

While Shepard and Miranda talked, the MEC Trooper was getting treated by passing crew members as if he was an elephant in the room. More often than not, he'd just stare at them right back, causing them to scurry off after getting a good look at his hideously scarred face.

Graves had already concocted three viable plans to kill everyone so far, Elise was engaged in a friendly conversation with the ship's yeoman, and Conagher was busy tinkering with an inactive console, a wide maniacal grin is plastered to his face. Heinrich kept looking around like a kid in a candy store, Claudia stood silent and still like a statue, only taking some glancing looks at passing crew members' faces, and Joker has left the group to take the helm.

"Acquiring Professor Solus seems like the most logical place to start." EDI's holographic figure appeared again.

Shepard changed his datapad's screen to display Archangel's dossier. "What about this guy? I could use a spotter."

"Once again, it comes down to your choice, commander." Miranda chirped in as they neared the elevator. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, a quick tour of the ship is in order." She brought up her omni-tool and pinged for someone to appear. Moments later, the elevator doors opened, revealing a couple of engineers.

"Ma'am? Is there something you need?" One of the engineers asked.

"Crewman Daniels, I need you and Crewman Donnelly to provide Commander Shepard and his new squad a look around the ship's interiors. Shepard will require to know… well, everything about the ship, and squads Xenobane and Echo will need to recognize where their sleeper pods are, and where do they get their rations. Am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am." Daniels saluted in an extremely sloppy manner, while Donnelly seems too engrossed with Miranda's figure to copy his partner's action.

"Come on, Kenneth." Daniels dragged her partner away to bring him back to reality. "Let's show the commander aro-" She trailed off when she saw his squad.

Dmitriyev leaned on his container. "Yes, yes. Let us all stare at the giant cyborg's handsome Slavic face." He deadpanned, in an extremely lazy manner.

"Wow…" Donnelly gaped at the MEC Trooper, Heinrich's plasma minigun and Conagher's robotic tendril protruding from the back of his shoulder. "The commander sure has great technological taste," He then took alternating stares at Elise and Claudia, who are both clad in Ghost armor, which has always been notorious amongst XCOM operatives for being extremely form fitting. "And a fine taste in soldiers, too." He muttered.

Shepard wiped an imaginary bead of sweat off his forehead and flapped his collar a few times. "Let's get this done with. After this, I'm gonna need to know where the ship's coolant systems and ventilation controls are. It's scorching in here."

* * *

**_Normandy SR-2 _Armory, Combat Information Center, Triton Station, S-173: The Hangar, 11:01 TCUT  
**

Donnelly opened the door, revealing a room filled to the brim with a multitude of weapons, whether standard-issue or prototypal. Jacob stood on one corner, keeping himself occupied by maintaining the _Normandy_'s ground-based armaments.

"This is the armory, commander." Donnelly stated. "If ya need something tha' shoots bullets or somethin' 'ard an' protective ta wear on missions, this is yer place. Obviously." He added. "Just don't touch tha' console, though. That's the _Normandy's _self-destruct terminal."

The commander arched an eyebrow.

"Kiddin'." The Scottish engineer immediately doubled back, holding his hands slightly up. "Ya should leave those containers ye're carryin' 'ere," Donnelly gestured at Xenobane's containers. "If ye're worried about anyone tryin' ta steal yer tech, well... ya shouldn't. Miranda, through her good graces, had ordered everyone ta leave anythin' that's marked 'XCOM PROPERTY - HANDLE WITH EXTREME CAUTION' alone. With words like that, I'm not sure I'd touch an XCOM-owned container, too."

Graves gave Donnelly a cursory look of mistrust before going deeper inside the armory. "Xenobane, let's set these boxes down here."

The four members of Xenobane placed their containers stacked with each other. Graves looked around before placing a small circular device on top of the pile of containers. Moments later, the device emitted what seems to be a plasma field over the containers, coating them in harmful energy.

"You should put some warnin' signs 'round the crates, commander." Conagher warned. "If anyone without a pair of Salazarite-infused gloves so much as _leans_ on the darn things, well... let's just say that things won't be pretty-lookin'."

Shepard frowned before wiping a real bead of sweat on his forehead.

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2 **_**Crew Deck, Triton Station S-173: The Hangar, 11:12 TCUT**

"Alright, this is the Crew Deck." Daniels said, just as the elevator doors flew open. The group had found out that Dmitriyev can't fit inside the elevator, so Daniels ordered her partner to escort the MEC Trooper to the Normandy's Cargo Deck, where he can spend his time without having the need to make himself as small as possible in order to not put dents in anything.

"This is where Xenobane and Echo should get their food. Since Rupert's the chef, you should expect to eat thin gruel for breakfast, lunch and dinner, without anything else to ease your suffering." Daniels pondered for a moment. "Of course, if the commander would be so kind to set our course to the Citadel for shore leave..."

Shepard frowned again after noticing that the crew are all giving him and his new squad some extended stares. Graves and Conagher didn't seem to mind. Elise and Heinrich gave a few friendly smiles to the crewmen, while Claudia, once more, remained as stiff and silent as a statue.

As the XCOM operatives dispersed to look around the crew deck, Shepard and Elise remained near the elevator. The commander had a question to ask her regarding her 'sedatives' back in Freedom's Progress. Xenobane's medic seemed to notice, as she stood in attention like a soldier about to be inspected by a visiting general.

"I'll get right to the point. What did you do to get Veetor to talk, Captain Bouchard?"

Elise shifted on her foot. "I... uh, I'm not sure Michael will approve of me telling you. It's one of XCOM's most guarded secrets."

Shepard began to use the same techniques he used on Graves. "I'm sure he'll think it's okay. After all, I'm going to need to know a lot about everyone in my crew so I can work with them better. So, what did you do?"

Elise looked around warily before returning to Shepard. "I'm a Gifted operative - a psionic. I'm capable of manipulating minds to my bidding, as long as I can overpower them." She whispered. "There are three psionics in our group. I'm one of them, the others are Michael and Fischer, and Michael's the strongest. I'm afraid I can only do the most basic things a psionic could do with her mind, commander. Dr. Erika has just recently helped me discover my abilities about a month ago."

Shepard and Elise were silent for a moment as they gave each other blank stares, but the commander eventually relented. "...Okaaay."

The captain rolled her eyes. "I'm serious, commander. Do you want me to demonstrate?"

Before Shepard could say anything, Elise's eyes had already started glowing purple again behind those peculiar glasses of hers. The commander watched in fascination as Crewman Hawthorne suddenly stood up from his table and bolted out of the Crew Deck, abandoning his food and screaming about how 'something' is inside his head.

"Woah, you _do not_ need to do that." Shepard faked his reprimanding tone. In truth, he found Hawthorne's panic attack to be hilarious. "They're probably gonna think Gardner's food is _that_ bad."

Shepard's words had greater effect on Elise than he wanted to, as she immediately stood straight and hung her head in remorse. "I- I'm sorry, commander. My exhaustion is clouding my decisions, I should get some rest soon."

The commander landed a reassuring hand on the captain's shoulderpad. "Hey, I was just joking. But, you _do _look like you need some shut-eye. And not just you, too. Everyone of your colleagues except Heinrich and Claudia look like they haven't slept in _weeks, _and I'm not exaggerating."

Elise nodded. "Yes, I've noticed. That's probably because the last few months hadn't been good on XCOM. Everyday, almost all of XCOM's field agents are sent out on anti-alien offensives, with only a few hours to rest and resupply before heading out into the breach again."

Shepard, who was familiar with dangerous, high-stress, low-reward, high-casualties missions himself back in his Alliance days, quietly understood. "Well, you can count yourself fortunate, then. I'd like my soldiers to be well-rested and prepared. I've already told Joker to set a course for Omega after we leave Triton, and there should be plenty of time for you and your fellow soldiers to get some sleep."

The captain gave a grateful nod to Shepard. "Thank you, commander."

Shepard made an inconsequential shrug. "It's only proper. And please, call me Shepard."

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2 **_**Engineering Deck, 3 Mass Relays to Sahrabarik System, 12:31 TCUT**

The commander, Xenobane, Echo and Daniels filed out of the elevator. It might be spacious enough, but Heinrich's bulk combined with the armor every XCOM operative was wearing made the descent down uncomfortable. However, Graves and Claudia remained as stoic as ever, with the latter unnervingly so.

Daniels sighed out a breath of relief. "Finally, this is the Engineering Deck. This is where me, Kenneth and the rest of the engineering detail spend the day, making sure the ship functions properly." She straightened her hair. "Really, if you're not an engineer, there should be nothing interesting for you to do here. Unless you really enjoy Kenneth's, ehem, _polite_ comments about the women, both old and _new_, around this ship."

"Hey look, ma'am," Conagher drawled, fixing Daniels a 'charming' look, which is made jarring by his left eye, which is obviously technological in nature. "I'm an engineer - that means I solve problems. Not problems like 'what is beauty?', because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of _philosophy_. I solve _practical_ prob-"

Graves groaned harshly. "Not this again, lieutenant."

"Alrighty then!" The engineer chirped. "But seriously. I've got fourteen college degrees in mechanical engineerin', architecture an' things I did a long time ago, so I can't remember."

Shepard furrowed his eyebrows at Conagher's statement. "You have fourteen college degrees? Why did you become a soldier when you could be so much more, and earn so much because of it?"

"I like guns and barbecues." Was Conagher's simple, straightforward answer.

Daniels held her head in thoughtful contemplation. "Hmm... fourteen degrees, eh? The engineering team _could_ use an engineering chief..."

Claudia did an eye-roll.

Before Shepard and his new team left the Engineering Deck, he adjusted the _Normandy_'s coolant systems to bring the ship's comfortable temperature of +21 °C to come crashing down into his home colony's freezing -15 °C, to Daniels' extreme frustration. The XCOM operatives were fortunate to each have fully-sealed suits of powered armor.

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2 **_**Mess Hall, Crew Deck, 3 Mass Relays to Sahrabarik System, 13:02 TCUT**

Daniels concluded the tour a few minutes ago. Shepard, Miranda and the XCOM operatives sat on one table in the mess hall.

"Alright, you two." Colonel Graves said with a sigh. "I promised to tell you everything once we're safe. Well... here I go."

For the next hour, the colonel enlightened Shepard and Miranda on what exactly caused two squads of heavily armed and armored soldiers from a parallel universe to inexplicably end up in Freedom's Progress. It all boiled down to an operation that XCOM's director, Maxwell Creed, had issued them - codenamed Event Horizon.

* * *

**[REDACTED] [REDACTED], Switzerland, October 09th, 2017, [REDACTED] Universal Time Coordinated**

Graves stubbed out his cigarette when he finally saw the subject of Xenobane and Echo's endeavor in the outskirts of this village: a crashed Matchstick-class overship, labelled UFO-0836 by Central Officer William 'Bill' Bradford.

"Xenobane Two, Xenobane Five, Echo Lead?" The colonel muttered through his radio. "Report."

A small wave of static later, a French-accented voice said, "There are two patrols of Muton Elites on each side of the overship. Another two patrols of Elites have been already dispatched by the High Ethereal to scout the surroundings out. They're looking for us, Michael."

"Just inside the overship, there are two Mutons with their Chryssalid attack dogs waiting for anything that looked like us to come and pass the threshold, sir." A quiet, American Midwesterner-accented voice reported. "An Mk. II Sectopod is just in the process of powering up, and two groups of Mechtoids, supported by some Sectoids are patrolling the ship's corridors. My assessment? Nothing we couldn't handle with enough application of force."

A heavier wave of static flooded Graves' radio, but it was not enough to even move him an inch. A thick, Irish-accented feminine voice could be heard shouting a second later, when the static cleared. "-rald! Amitabh's been hit! Heinrich, Claudia! Cover Gerald, give him some suppressive fire!" A loud wave of the characteristic sound of plasma discharges and Floaters screaming in agony could be heard. "Graves! We've managed to attract the main force's attention, like you planned. We need your squad to breach the overship, capture the bastard in charge and retrieve the device. We can only hold out for so long!" Another volley of plasma discharges and explosions could be heard.

"Will do." The colonel whispered back. "Six, trigger the charge. Five, plug the midget."

Instantly, a patrol of Muton Elites were blasted to bloody bits by a plasma charge exploding just in the middle of their ranks. The northernmost wall of the overship collapsed, and the Sectoid Commander in charge of the Mutons outside the ship got his head forcefully removed from his shoulders by a plasma sniper rifle blast.

"Six, provide Five with spotter support." Graves gruffly ordered. "Two, Three, Four, on me. Let's gut that big-headed bastard."

"Sir?" The doubtful voice of Xenobane Six entered Graves' radio channel. "The commander had ordered us to take the High Ethereal alive, he wouldn't want it any other way. He also said that he wouldn't want you to get trigger-happy again or he's going to take you out of active duty for a week."

Graves spat the ball of tobacco he was chewing on the ground. "Creed can go suck my dick. That wanker doesn't know how to properly deal with an alien invasion."

Six didn't object.

The four members of Xenobane Squad emerged out of their hiding places and immediately opened fire on the confused Muton Elites. Graves' whole body emanated raw, mind-searing hatred as he projected all of his malice into his trademark psionic attack, Mindblast.

Instantly, the leader of the Elites dropped its weapon, fell on its knees and clutched its head as sickly yellowish-green blood poured out of every opening in its helmet. It struggled vainly to make the legion of hate-filled voices in its head to go away, but it was of no use. The Muton's head messily exploded, releasing Graves' contempt and ill-will to its comrades, who shared the same gruesome fate.

Xenobane Squad's leader then focused all of his psionic prowess in projecting a difficult-to-execute psionic attack, labelled as 'Rift' by Dr. Vahlen's Psi-oriented researchers. A group of Sectoids and Heavy Floaters suffered a hideous assortment of agonizing deaths after being sucked in by the red-hued Rift, which practically oozed disgust, revulsion and loathing at the aliens.

When the Mutons have finally reorganized themselves, they performed just as well as if they were actually having the upper hand, taunting and baring their armored chests at the XCOM operatives besieging their crashed ship. Unfortunately for them, Captain Elise, designated as Xenobane Two, had just learned how to project a projectile-redirecting Telekinetic Field. Through some sort of natural affinity with the ability, Elise can not only redirect enemy projectiles, but she can also bring the enemy's plasma bolts hurtling back to their owners.

Conagher, who was Xenobane Three, was having the time of his life remotely hacking the enemy's weapons to backfire on them, rendering them with severe third-degree burns all over their bodies, with some of the physically weaker Sectoids losing their arms after their weapons blew up on their face. Dmitriyev, labelled Xenobane Four, always loved the thrill of a fight, which is what motivated him to give up his limbs and become a MEC Trooper as an alternative to staying crippled for the rest of his life after his old squad was ambushed by Ethereal forces.

Soon, the four operatives have breached the overship's walls, with all of the defenders outside lying dead or wounded. They continued their advance carefully, knowing full well that even with the amount of protection their armor gives, they are still just as vulnerable as normal human beings once their protection faltered under sustained hits.

It is only when they were getting close to the lead Ethereal when Graves' radio pinged open, and Bradford's recognizable voice was heard saying, "Xenobane Squad, there seems to be a massive build-up of dark energy all around the overship. The commander wants you to pull your men back to the Skyranger, he's scrubbing the mission."

"What." In a flat tone, Graves asked. "We're _very_ close to the Ethereal, Central. Tell the commander to give us a few more minutes to-"

The ear-shattering roar of a Sectopod's fusion lance was heard before the walls next to Xenobane were blasted open, leaving them out in the open and without cover. Graves turned his head and found no less than _four_ of the mechanical monstrosities and several squads of Mutons on the far side of the room, getting ready to obliterate the human trespassers.

"...We're compromised."

In the next few minutes, Graves and his men ran for all its worth. Once they managed to find themselves out of the overship, they found their Skyranger already primed up, with Xenobane Five and Six just outside the entrance, picking off any aliens out of cover.

"BIG SKY!" The colonel shouted into his radio. "This mission's scrubbed! We're pulling back!"

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2 **_**Mess Hall, Crew Deck, 2 Mass Relays to Sahrabarik System, 14:09 TCUT**

"And then when we're in the air, the overship suddenly... exploded. Everything around us were coated in blue energies, like someone put a blue filter over everything. Next thing we know, we're in this abandoned planet called... what is it called?"

"Freedom's Progress." Miranda answered the colonel. "And it's just a colony, not a whole planet."

The colonel trained Miranda an aloof stare. "Hmph. That's how it is. Just know that I've already been breaking protocol so many times now, that I should be executed by my own men right now, but I think they're smarter than that."

However, something about Graves' men had already caught Miranda's eye. "These...'psionic' abilities your men possess... does that mean you can read our minds?"

Graves, uncharacteristic for him, suddenly smirked at the Cerberus operative. "Confidential information, Operative Lawson. How about a secret for a secret, hmm?"

"I'll play your game." Miranda responded, almost mischievously. "I'd have figured you noticed that Jacob and I have access to powers that allows us to... _influence_, objects with our minds."

The XCOM colonel mockingly applauded Miranda. "Well done. I've been caught. In exchange for information about our psionics, you tell _me_ how do you do that."

The Cerberus operative and the XCOM operative spent the next few minutes talking about their chosen subject, while Shepard and everybody else listened on. After the deal was finished, Miranda, also uncharacteristic for her, smiled as if she had the better deal. Graves caught on, and he was just about to ask before Shepard talked before him.

"Uh, Miranda just conned you to spill your guts out much more than she did," He faked the remorse in his tone. In truth, he wanted to learn just as much about psionics as Miranda's inclined to. "You can just search up how our biotics work on the extranet, you know."

Graves looked nonplussed. "I don't think your 'Cerberus' can make Gifted soldiers. You'll need some really advanced Ethereal-made technology, plus, I only gave you the rough outlines about the Gift. The specific and precise details about making psionics are back in my own universe and I also doubt you have the technology to bring us back."

"Never say never, colonel." Miranda nonchalantly said as she viewed her gloves like she was checking out her fingernails. "With enough support and funding, Cerberus can do anything. Just ask Shepard."

The XCOM operatives all turned to look at Shepard, who shrugged. "I wouldn't know about that. I'm Alliance, not Cerberus. Although, they _did_ brought back a lifeless, burnt-out corpse back into a living human being."

Graves huffed. "I'm not inclined to believe th-"

"I was that person." Shepard finished.

Everyone of Xenobane and Echo's reactions can be summed up with a flat 'what'. The commander chuckled. "I don't know the details. You'll have to ask Miranda about it." He paused to think about something.

"Oh, and since you're going to be part of the ground team, I'll have to give each of you your very own Polaris-model omni-tools." The commander fished for something in his Cerberus officer uniform's pocket, and threw five compact, circular devices on the table. "You should wear those now. Once you do, there should be a beginner's manual that will pop up when you first use them, so you can get to know how they work faster. Also, the translation programs in your omni-tools should let you understand and speak with any alien you encounter from now on. I've also already taken the liberty to make each of you an extranet banking account and a universal chatroom account."

Everyone stared at Shepard blankly, so he pressed on. "You didn't think you'll be working for free, didn't you? The Illusive Man's already pouring credits down your accounts as we speak. You can use the money to buy yourselves some better equipment. Now, all you need are your own kinetic barriers. Unfortunately, we don't have any spare kinetic barrier modules in the ship, so you'll have to buy them in Omega, once we arrive."

The XCOM soldiers reluctantly accepted the omni-tools and powered them up, as instructed by Miranda. They were used to giving equipment to people, not the other way around. Each one of the operatives took a few minutes to set the devices to their preferences, with Conagher being the most delighted at the prospect of owning his own omni-tool. However, Claudia only did as much as read the in-device manual before turning her new omni-tool off.

"Also," Miranda started. "Since you're obviously not from around here, I've modified those omni-tools to include a detailed history of this universe in their databanks, starting from 2017, where you're supposed to be from, up to now, where the galaxy's denizens are too busy being ignorant to notice a war coming to them. You should take the time to read them in your spare time, to allow you to understand that even us humans need help from extraterrestrials from time to time."

Graves powered his omni-tool down and left the mess hall, presumably to get some rest, but the scowl on his face betrayed the true reason why he left. Elise decided to check out the _Normandy_'s medbay so she could get acquainted with Cerberus medical equipment, and Conagher sank on his seat, put his feet up the table and continued fiddling with his new omni-tool. Claudia each gave Shepard and Heinrich a nod before literally disappearing into thin air, and Heinrich decided to check out the strange pinging coming from his own omni-tool.

The major found a new notification delivered to him in his extranet account's message inbox. Indeed, there was a new message from one 'TZorah2183' for him, dated just a few hours ago. Curious, Heinrich decided to open the message. What he read made his left eye twitch involuntarily. He resisted the overpowering urge to smack his own head on a nearby wall.

* * *

_Heinrich,_

_I'm very sorry. I've forgotten to return that shotgun you handed me back on Freedom's Progress. __You've provided us more_

_ than enough of the help we needed, but I'm afraid I've just taken it too far __by taking the shotgun with me back to the flotilla._

_ I promise, if we meet again, to return it to you just __like it was__. __It's already giving me so much trouble with the __looks I keep _

_getting, especially from __one of the admirals._

_With regards, _

_Tali_

_._

_Postscript: __I was trying __to compose messages to the families of those in my team who died, but I eventually got tired trying_

_to find the right things to say, so I tried __searching up your name. I __found an extranet __profile named 'Heinrich_Fischer_E-02', _

_with a blurry picture of a large man __wearing a suit __of armor __just like yours. Y__ou need to keep up with current technological _

_trends, like our late friend __Prazza once said; your __omni-tool data says that you've just made your own extranet account _

_literally just hours ago._

* * *

Heinrich slowly powered his omni-tool down. Graves is not going to like this, but in the end, the major couldn't find himself to care. XCOM doesn't exist now as far as he knows, and there's probably no way he'll ever see his family again, back on his Earth.

He ran his gauntleted hand on his face ruefully, feeling the cold, coarse metallic touch of his gauntlet against his skin.

"Something you found, Heinrich?" The commander said, who was actually watching him for a while now. With hesitation, Heinrich reopened his omni-tool, signed on his extranet account and displayed the message for Shepard to see.

"Ha, you gave Tali a shotgun. Graves, isn't going to like that, but you can count on Tali to put a shotgun to good use." He muttered as he read the message, apparently ignoring the part where the quarian wrote that she wanted the alloy cannon returned. "Tali must spend a _lot _of her spare time on her omni-tool. Hell, I just made that account and she already sent you a message. Heh, quarians." With that said, the commander walked away, leaving Heinrich, Conagher and a few crewmen who were eating their (disgusting, and recently, panic-inducing) lunch.

Conagher stood up from his seat and stretched. "Well, I'll tweak this thing later when I get some sleep. Fischer, ya should get some rest too."

"Yes, I'll be there in a few moments." The major responded back. In all honesty, Dr. Vahlen had his body augmented with anti-exhaustion nanites, reducing his need to sleep by 60%. Besides, he already had a good rest when the Skyranger blew up and crashed. In fact, he was more in the mood for drinking; this had been a very long day. He reminded himself to get a memory-enhancing gene mod before heading towards the lounge room.

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2 Cargo Bay, 2 Mass Relays to Sahrabarik System, 14:37 TCUT**_

"I assume that you've got all you needed in here?" Shepard spoke in the only language the MEC Trooper understood.

Without looking, Dmitriyev nodded at the commander. He was sitting on a giant crate, meticulously disassembling his particle cannon with a cybernetic-enhanced eye. "I only require a ration bar or two a day. I have almost outgrown the need to eat, having had my stomach replaced with a more-efficient alternative."

"Don't you find this setup a little boring?"

The MEC Trooper looked the commander in the eyes. "Of course I do. I live for a fight, and right now, I'm not getting any. It'd be best for me if I bloodied my hands at least once a day. Oh, and I prefer killing aliens. They're much more satisfying to... _disassemble,_ than EXALT agents."

Shepard frowned for the third time this day. He wondered if he can get any progress with trying to rid his new crew of their xenophobia. _I guess a bloody extraterrestrial invasion where the aliens know nothing but killing does this to soldiers. _The commander grimaced as he remembered Conagher giving him a detailed story about his home planet's alien problem on the shuttle ride back to Triton Station: alien soldiers deliberately targeting civilians, abducting innocent people for horrible unethical experiments, and obliterating several trillion dollars' worth of homes and infrastructure. What's worse, the aliens never seem to relent, or show any remorse in committing their atrocities.

"Look, I know what's happening back in your Earth, but this is a different universe altogether. The aliens here, well..." The commander thought about the right words to put together briefly. "While they might look drastically different than human beings, they share a lot of similarities with us more than you think. Your view of 'X-rays', as you and your team called them, might not be the most positive right now, but I'm sure that in time, you'll learn that aliens can't be just merciless, insensitive, planet-invading bastards, they can also be just as merciful and caring as the next human."

Dmitriyev let out a mirthful laugh. "Don't worry, _Andryusha_. If you like aliens so much that you don't want me to disassemble them in the most beautifully efficient manner as I could, you can rest assured that I won't do anything that involves..." A little smile was on the MEC Trooper's partly machine face. "Disassembling."

But then that little smile disappeared, being replaced with a cold, unamused frown. "But if they decide to harm any of my friends in any way, you can rest assured, some disassembling _will_ be required." Dmitriyev averted his gaze from Shepard and went back to maintaining his weapon.

The commander resisted the urge to frown. "None of that will happen, _Alyosha_. I'll make sure of it." With that, Shepard turned and left, to get some rest up in his cabin, and to ponder over the advantages and disadvantages of a highly effective and highly trained - yet highly racist team of XCOM operatives.

* * *

_A/N: In response to several PMs, this story will NOT be just a retelling of ME2 with a six-man squad of XCOM troopers thrown in the mix, as there will be a buttload of new missions that Shepard's crew will undertake, whether they're XCOM-oriented or not. Also, I've noticed that most XCOM/ME crossovers have taken the pains of combining the two worlds together, like the humans of ME were actually the humans from XCOM, who advanced to the stars with the help of Ethereal technology._

_This story is different to those stories. This one will involve XCOM's struggle against a larger, more forceful extraterrestrial invasion in future chapters, and it starts with a link (a special person with exceptional psionic abilities). Just imagine, I'm trying to juggle two separate worlds together, and eventually, I'll merge those two worlds together into a science-fiction enthusiast's wet dream (I'm really sleepy when I typed this. Bear with me). IT WILL BE TEDIOUS (read: wonderful). If I manage to get enough support and input from you, the readers, I'll (maybe. There could be some emergencies in my pitiful life) eventually extend this story to involve ME3. _

_Once again, thanks to all who took the time to read the fruits of my boredom. Seriously, what have I done? This is _so_ addictive! My DotA skills are detoriorating with every minute I spend writing instead of playing the darned game. RATE AND REVIEW! They're like drugs, but... holy crap!_

_ALSO: This chapter used to be named, 'On Second Thought, Let's Not Go to Earth. 'Tis a Silly Place'. Cue dancing Alliance soldiers._


	3. III: Scoped, Dropped and Autopsied

**Chapter III: Scoped, Dropped and Autopsied**

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2**_** Captain's Cabin, Sahrabarik System, March 31st, 2185, 07:48 Terran Coordinated Universal Time**

The Cycle of Arcturus – Issue 2753 – April 27th, 2184

COMMANDER ANDREI KONSTANTINOV SHEPARD: COMMANDER NO MORE

"_Alliance High Command today had made the decision to posthumously promote Commander Andrei K. Shepard to captain, six months after his death at the hands of an unknown vessel, after his own ship, the _Normandy SR-1_, was destroyed. The remnants of his old crew reported that he apparently refused to board one of the _Normandy_'s escape pods to go and retrieve his helmsman, who also refused to escape, as he believed that the ship could still be saved._

_The commander rose to fame after he played a central role in repulsing the geth attack on the Citadel. He personally confronted and killed Saren Arterius, the rogue Spectre who apparently organized and led the geth to action. A few weeks after his death, an estimated six hundred thousand people belonging to different Council races had decided to attend his Alliance-funded funer-"_

Shepard closed his omni-tool, cutting off the unfittingly monotonous voice that was supposed to read the news for him. He grumbled in annoyance; he wasn't a commander anymore.

He had always liked how the word 'commander' went with his name, as did everyone else, as evidenced by the fact that Shepard was always called 'Commander Shepard' by almost everyone, given the opportunity. Now, he's Captain Shepard; a name that only one person ever called him with, and that's just because it's a racial trait of hers.

In a way, this was a pleasant surprise. Being a commander, he wasn't supposed to be in charge of Graves, since the XCOM operative held a higher rank than him. Now, they are of equal rank, and Shepard knows a lot more about this galaxy than Graves ever will, meaning that Shepard is in charge, not the colonel.

"Commander," EDI's synthesized voice chimed in. "Flight Lieutenant Moreau has reported that the _Normandy _will dock with Omega soon. I have already alerted the ground team, and Operative Lawson has once again requested your presence at the CIC before you depart."

Shepard had already geared up with everything he considered essential while on board the notoriously wretched space station. Now, the only thing he's going to need to do is to brief the ground team that Omega isn't a place where you can let your guard down, lest you find yourself dead in an alley, while the vorcha pick over your bullet-ridden corpse.

"Right, tell Miranda and the rest of the ground team to regroup at the communications room. This is gonna be a long day, EDI. I'm sure of it."

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2 **_**Communications Room, Sahrabarik System, 07:53 TCUT**

"So commander…" Elise began. She was still wearing their armor, like the rest of the XCOM operatives around the comm room table. "You've managed to convince us to join you on your endeavor, but you haven't really told us much about what _is_ your endeavor about."

Shepard nodded. "I was getting to that part. First of all, I'm sure you've already read about how humans in this universe expanded, and how some of us chose to stay as far away from the Alliance as possible by colonizing the fringes of human-owned space."

The five operatives nodded. Miranda and Jacob looked surprised; the new ground team was as competent in non-combat situations as they are in fighting.

"Good." Shepard gave the team an approving smirk before continuing, "Since those fringe colonies are barely protected by the Alliance, they were easily trampled over by extraplanetary threats, like pirates and such. In these times, there's been an increase of frequencies on human fringe colony attacks, only this time though, there had been no evidence on who or _what_ attacked the colonies."

Shepard let his words to sink in before resuming his talk, "I'm sure everybody here has seen Veetor's data, about the actual perpetrators of the attacks. As it turns out, it was an enigmatic insectoid race called the Collectors. They're the ones who attacked the colonies, abducting humans and taking them for God-knows-what, to God-knows-where. Since everybody thought I was dead, and that everything I fought for were just the hallucinations of a delusional veteran, I guess it's now up to us to end this threat."

"We're taking on an entire race with just nine soldiers?" Graves doubtfully questioned.

The commander groaned at the colonel's impatience. "No, you didn't let me finish. We're heading down to Omega to recruit three people – two mercenaries and a scientist. After that, we'll be landing on Korlus, docking on the Citadel and making a quick retrieve-and-retreat op in Purgatory, to recruit a krogan warlord, a… _felon_, and of course, _another_ felon, respectively." Shepard presented the dossiers on the six specialists on the briefing table.

As soon as the five operatives downloaded copies of the dossiers on their omni-tool, Shepard and his team did a quick weapons and armor systems check before heading out.

* * *

_**Normandy SR-2**_** Docking Bay, Omega, 08:12 TCUT**

The airlock doors opened, and the nine members of the _Normandy_ ground team filed out in three three-man squads, with Shepard leading the way alongside Conagher and Jacob. A dozen steps into Omega, a foul stench of a vile combination of rotting corpses, unattended chemicals, urine, feces and fire had already assaulted everyone's sense of smell.

Elise stood in close proximity to Heinrich as the group further went inside the station. She took _extremely_ careful steps as she walked Omega's halls. Elise had always liked every piece of her equipment to be as clean as possible; a habit she picked during her days as a medical doctor in the city of Lyon. Her previous employment as a civilian doctor was often overlooked by her commanding officers in favor of her skills with a Medmist canister, her Gifted status, and her remarkable aim with a rifle.

Even with the space station's corroded, dirty walls and malfunctioning technology, Conagher still seemed to be engrossed with his surroundings. Still, his grip on his rifle is as hard and rigid as if he was in a warzone, and with the current state of Omega, he might as well be. Frequently, he'd bring up his omni-tool to take ten-second vids of some of Omega's still-operational technology, his tendril often making excited, mechanical purrs and whirs as he did so.

Claudia, who was initially reluctant to put on a helmet in favor of wearing her usual hooded cloak over her armor, now doubled back on her words, pulled her hood down and donned her helmet, just so she could escape the stench. She liked wearing hooded cloaks over her armor for the concealment they give. Often, she has two of three different grenade types hidden underneath her cloak.

Miranda, despite Omega's overwhelming atmosphere of treachery and violence, still seemed as calm as she was back in the ship. However, her sub-machine gun's safety lock is notably off, and her hands are balled into fists. Jacob looked as if he knew he was walking into an enemy ambush, as he had his shotgun already in hand, ready to be used at a moment's notice.

Dmitriyev, as expected, had already received more than a few dirty looks from Omega's denizens. He doesn't seem to mind as he forged on with his comrades, his mechanical legs making robotic whirring sounds as he moved. However, he made the occasional effort to lightly shove away the intermittent too-curious-for-his-own-good vorcha. They did not make an effort to get up; having their fragile necks bent the wrong way a little too much.

Heinrich had earlier swapped his damaged helmet with another that resembled an armored gasmask from his team's reserves, and replaced his chargepack's depleted Elerium power cells with supercharged ones to give his Snapdragon some extra stopping power. Normally, a whole Snapdragon chargepack should take decades before it runs out, as it has a built-in self replicator that recycles every shot made, but the damages the weapon sustained over the years necessitated some maintenance.

Graves made a grumbling, unimpressed growl at the sight of Omega's interiors, especially when he saw a frog-like alien approach the group. It took every ounce of restraint and self-discipline he possessed to keep his plasma rifle's barrel pointed away from the alien. Secretly, he was already influencing the alien's mind with a tiny dose of Psi Panic.

"Ah, welome to Omega. You're new here, aren't ya?" The salarian in front of Shepard asked in quick, fleeting breaths. "I can always tell. Allow me to-"

Suddenly, a four-eyed, bipedal alien approached the _Normandy_ group, cutting the salarian off. He was outfitted in a weathered suit of heavy armor, and was armed with a measly-looking pistol attached to his hip.

Shepard's body temperature spiked at the sight of a batarian. His grip around his rifle tightened, but he gained control of himself in short order. This is simply not the time, or the place.

The salarian visibly shook in alarm as he turned around to address his batarian colleague. "Oh, hello, Moklan! I was just-."

Moklan, with an unamused frown on his mouth, leaned in close. "Leave, Fargut. _Now._

"O-of course, Moklan! Whatever she wants." The salarian was all too eager to scurry off, after he saw Moklan's hand make its way towards the pistol's handle.

The batarian snorted in contempt. "Blasted scavengers. Welcome to Omega… Shepard."

The commander furrowed his brows as he crossed his arms around his chestplate. "Huh, you know who I am?"

"Of course." There was a condescending tone to Moklan's voice. He then tilted his head and spared a look at Shepard's team behind him. Upon his four eyes landed on Dmitriyev, Graves and Heinrich, his tone immediately lost its venom as he said, in a passive, explanatory tone, "We had you tagged the moment you entered the Terminus Systems. You're… uh, less than subtle as you exited the relay. My superior, Aria T'Loak, wants to know what brings a dead Spectre to Omega. She wants you to head to Afterlife as soon as you get the chance."

"Fine." The commander agreed, reluctantly. He was on foreign territory, and pissing the local overlord off isn't a good way for his mission to start. "We'll head over to Aria after I had a talk with my team."

"It's no rush, come as you please." Moklan replied. He looks more and more docile and less intimidating as Graves continued making threatening gestures with his rifle. "I guess I'll be heading off now."

Moklan turned and walked away, making a left turn towards a door before disappearing. Just as the batarian left, Shepard had already spotted a man he was supposed to recruit, and he's apparently busy beating another batarian senseless.

"No one said you could talk, jackass." The man said, after landing a knee to the batarian's gut, sending him sprawling.

"You Zaeed Massani?" The commander asked just as the team were at the mercenary's back.

The man gave the downed batarian another kick before turning around. "Yeah, that's me. You're the famous Andrei Shepard, aren't you?" Zaeed, upon seeing the XCOM operatives with Shepard, made an impressed chuckle. "Hmph, I wasn't expecting you to be bringing company other than your Cerberus buddies."

"Hmhmm. To be honest, I didn't really plan for these guys to show up." Shepard admitted. "Anyway, the _Normandy_'s docked just behind us. Welcome aboard, Zaeed."

The commander shook hands with the mercenary, who chose to spoke up. "Great, but has the big man told you about the old job I had that needed finishing?"

Shepard shook his head. "I think the Illusive Man's chosen to leave that job out of the dossier. No matter, if it's important to you, I'll make sure we get to it as soon as possible."

Zaeed gave the commander a cold smirk. "Good, good. Let's get it done first so it gets out of the way, then we can get back to being big goddamn heroes. You're ship's that way, aye?"

The commander then had an idea. "Wait, Zaeed. I take it that you're familiar with Omega. Is that right?"

* * *

**Afterlife Front Entrance, Omega, 08:24 TCUT**

"Okay, everyone." Shepard addressed each member of his group just outside Afterlife's main entrance, where an elcor bouncer is having the time of his life making an impatient human's life as miserable as possible.

The commander had ordered Zaeed to remain with the XCOM operatives so that he can teach them the ups and downs of Omega. "Since there's so many of us, I'll arrange us into teams. Before that, I'm going to need names. EDI, could you give me a random subject you have?"

It took the AI half a nanosecond to come up with something. "The NATO phonetic alphabet."

The commander smiled. "Great subject. Claudia and Conagher, for the entirety of our stay here in Omega, you'll stick with me as part of Section Sierra. Heinrich will be in charge of Section Foxtrot, with Miranda and Elise as his squadmates, and Colonel Graves will lead Section Golf with Dmitriyev and Jacob. Zaeed will be his own team for now."

The commander looked around before speaking again, "For now, Section Sierra and Foxtrot will merge. We're going to head inside Afterlife, find Aria T'loak, and ask her about Archangel and Mordin. After that, we're probably going to be knee-deep in trouble again, so I suggest that everybody involved to check your weapons, you'll be using them soon."

"What about Section Golf, commander?" Graves asked. "Don't tell me you're just going to leave us behind here in this alien-filled dump."

"I'm afraid I'll have to." Shepard replied forthrightly. "If I brought too many men, people might get suspicious. It's best if I take two teams and leave one behind, and not to mention that you have access to technology that a lot of people would kill to get their hands on. If we split into three teams, there's an easier chance for all of us to retreat to the _Normandy_ if things get out of hand."

Graves snorted before nodding unenthusiastically. "Right, commander. You've got yourself a point, but what're the four of us going to do here while we wait for your lot to return?"

"Scout the area out, maybe." Shepard suggested. "You probably have enough credits to purchase three above-average grade units of kinetic barrier modules, but Dmitriyev's going to need a bigger, more complicated module, and it's going to cost a bit more than the standard fare."

"Dmitriyev doesn't need shields. He's already got one." Conagher stated. "You noticed when you shot him a coupl'a times there's a shimmer around the area you shot him? That's it."

"Right, that means you only have to buy three units instead of four. Watch yourselves out there. In Omega, you'd best be on your guard at all times." With that said, the commander and his chosen men regrouped, did a quick weapons check and turned their heels to Afterlife's doors.

The colonel created a new radio channel, labelled 'XB-MG' and ordered everyone – Zaeed included, to use the channel as their means to communicate with each other at long range. Within seconds the four members of the _Normandy_ strike team who were not chosen blinked green on Graves' HUD. He paused for a second before talking, "Shepard said we're going to go on a glorified shopping spree." The sarcasm in his voice was palpable. "My omni-device-bloody-thing said that I've got fifty-thousand 'credits' in my account. I'm assuming that this should be enough to buy three of these 'shields' I keep hearing about."

"Hell, you can get more 'an goddamn that if yer going for those crappy, malfunctioning second-hand modules." Zaeed drawled in an accent that mirrored Graves' own, but less than elegantly so. "Three units of good, unused shield modules can cost you a lot more though, maybe about forty-six thousand creds if you know what you're doing."

Graves grunted nonchalantly. "I'll make them hand me over their clothes off their backs if I wanted to."

"That's good. I'm hoping you're planning on buying from asari merchants, then." Zaeed replied. "Much better than that elcor wanker, Harrot. Unless you're into those sort of things."

* * *

**Afterlife, Omega, 08:40 TCUT**

Afterlife is very much like one of Earth's loud, highly expensive, and thoroughly unrespectable nightclubs. There's one thing that bugged Claudia, though. It the disturbing amount of aliens present, especially those alien strippers dancing provocatively all around the nightclub.

Even with those strange scalp crests and their bluish complexion, the dancers disconcertingly look a lot like human women. Sure, they might differ in complexion to one another, with some having purple or teal-like skin, and different facial markings as well, but to Claudia, though, they all look the same: extraterrestrials that, by some sort of genetic or biological miracle, happen to take a lot to her own race. Sort of like Thin Men, but in their case, it was intentional. The Ethereals make a lot of formerly impossible things happen.

There were other aliens as well, like those carapaced, mandibled, taloned ones that sport a lot of avian features, a crest of horns on the top of their heads, and facial markings that vary in pattern and color. In a way, these aliens reminded the XCOM markswoman of the supposed missing link between dinosaurs and birds, which was discovered in 2015. These aliens stood straight and alert as if they were actually soldiers guarding a military installation's main gate, not some armed security guards in a nightclub.

Her omni-tool's 'codex' app old her that these aliens are called 'Asari', and 'Turian', respectively. Claudia wasted no time studying their biological makeup – especially their most vulnerable spots. So far, her search only came up with 'the head'.

"That's close enough." A voice belonging to an asari forced Claudia to bring her omni-tool down. She found that Sections Sierra and Foxtrot have been caught off-guard, with dozens of aliens surrounding and pointing their weapons at them. Even a turian she towered over by several inches had the audacity to train both of his pistols at the markswoman. For the most part, she doubted that his bullets would pierce her armor, and she definitely believed that she could just break his filthy alien neck then and there, but Shepard wouldn't approve of that, so she played along as the commander was scanned by a batarian. He looked as stiff as if he was under scrutiny by the enemy.

"If you're looking for weapons, you're not doing a pretty good job. My team is basically a walking armory." He spoke with arms crossed, glaring at the batarian in front of him.

"Just a precaution. Can't be too careful with dead Spectres." The asari on the center of the stage said. "That could be anyone wearing your face."

"I was told you're the one to ask for questions."

"They're clean." The batarian said before backing off. Taking a seat on one of the couches. Soon, the guards all around the two Sections stood down and went about their business.

The asari turned around. "Depends on the questions."

"You run Omega?"

The asari chuckled before turning her back from Shepard once more. Suddenly, a thought was implanted into his head, which he used for his advantage.

"I'm willing to bet you're going to say that you don't just _run _Omega, but you're also essentially Omega." The commander sarcastically remarked. He nearly laughed at the surprised look on Aria's face. He liked catching people off-guard.

"Ha," Aria mockingly applauded Shepard. "I like a man with a sense of humor. They're hard to find in this space station. But you must never forget one thing, and that's I'm the boss, CEO, _queen_ if you're feeling dramatic. It doesn't matter. Omega has no titled ruler, and only one rule." She slowly took a seat on the center couch, training Shepard a glare that could make most criminal bosses cringe at their own inadequacy to have their own menacing glares.

"Don't _fuck_ with Aria." The asari simply said, but it sounded rehearsed to both Shepard and Claudia.

The commander turned his head to his team and shook his head. He was essentially saying 'is she serious?' Claudia then knew that Shepard is a decent enough commander.

"Easy enough to remember." He said as he turned to regard Aria once more.

"If you forget, someone will remind you." She replied.

The batarian scanner stood up from his seat again and fixed the commander his own glare, which was significantly lacking. "And then I toss your sorry ass out the nearest airlo-"

The batarian didn't get to finish his sentence. Shepard silenced him with a pistol blast to the head. At close range, his shields did nothing. He crumpled to the ground with a _thud_ as his blood poured out of the new hole in his head.

"_Zatknis', mudak_." The commander said, his tone barely above a whisper, containing enough malice and contempt to thicken the atmosphere to a sickening level. Suddenly, his eyes grew wide as he realized what he's done. The Sections prepared for a fight, one that might result in casualties, but none came. Aria remained seated on her seat with an apathetic expression.

"You can have that one." The asari said, her tone flat. "I was going to shoot him myself for being incompetent, anyway. Sit down." She gestured to the seat adjacent to her.

Claudia was a bit baffled that no shootout happened, but she was glad anyway. Her hooded cloak can be expensive to replace, not to mention that she's hiding half a dozen grenades in her person, which might've turned the situation from unpleasant to ugly. In her mind though, she noticed that Shepard might have a sore spot when concerning batarians.

Shepard was baffled too, but he didn't show it. He sat as instructed, with his hand hovering close to his cloaking module's trigger.

As soon as he was seated, Aria wasted no time to cut to the chase. "So, what brings a deceased Spectre to my dominion?"

"I'm looking for two individuals I'm trying to reach." The commander replied as he displayed two dossiers, belonging to Archangel and Mordin Solus, from his omni-tool. "My contact says that they've been seen here in Omega recently. Where can I find them?"

Aria read Archangel's dossier, choosing to set aside Mordin's for now. "You're looking for Archangel too, huh? And I thought he can't piss anymore people off."

"I assume he's in trouble?" Shepard asked, in his most innocent tone.

The asari crimelord laughed. "He is, and a lot more. I expect that if things go on like this for him, he'll be dead before this day's over."

"Who's after him, then?" The commander inquired.

Aria looked over her guards before continuing. "He's managed to bring three rival merc companies to set their differences aside just to bring him under. They've got him cornered, but it sounds like they're having trouble finishing him off. They've started hiring anybody with a gun to help them."

"That piece of intel could help us get to the objective." Heinrich suggested. "All we need to do is pretend we're mercenaries looking for a quick 'hit-and-run' job."

"I agree." Miranda voiced. "I just saw the private room they're using for recruiting just over there. With all the guns we're carrying, I'm sure we'll have no trouble getting in."

Shepard nodded before turning to Aria. "What can you tell me about Archangel?"

"Not as much as I'd like." The crimelord responded. "He showed up here several months ago and started causing all sorts of problems. If you make your own laws – which everyone here does – he makes your life difficult."

"He's reckless and idealistic, but he seems to know enough to stay clear of me." Aria added after some thinking.

The commander spared a glance at his squadmates, who nodded at him in response. He turned his attention back to Aria. "I appreciate the help, T'Loak. But what can you tell me about Dr. Solus?"

"The salarian doctor? Last I heard he was trying to help plague victims in the quarantine zone. I always liked Mordin. He's as likely to heal you as he is to shoot you."

"What can you tell me about him?" Shepard asked.

"He used to be part of STG, as my sources indicated." Aria answered. "He's brilliant and dangerous. Just don't get him talking. He never shuts up." Aria let her words fester before continuing, "If you really need to find him, take a shuttle to the quarantine zone. No guarantee they'll let you in, of course."

"Thanks for the information." Shepard stood up from his seat and walked down the stairs. "Sections, let's move. We've got a turian to take with us."

* * *

**Omega Marketplace, Hezloch District, Omega, 09:18 TCUT**

Back at XCOM HQ, underground in the African plains, Dmitriyev had always received strange looks from everyone, his fellow MEC Troopers excluded. Unaugmented soldiers must've thought he was insane for volunteering for the Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit Project, or that he only cared about killing aliens, nothing more.

They didn't understand. Not one of them did. They might think that Dmitriyev will eventually sit down and come to look at his robotic limbs and say, "I never asked for this" later in his life, but to Dmitriyev, _yes._ He totally, shamelessly, _unrepentantly _asked for it.

Now, he received glares and scowls, not looks. They were glares of murderous curiosity or contempt, like those of hardened criminals. To this immoral hive of combined alien and human wretches, Dmitriyev looked different. That means he must be in Omega to cause harm, or anything that can be considered 'bad'.

Naturally, the MEC Trooper just didn't care. Their glares didn't bother him in the slightest, as they looked too weak, too drunk or too drugged up to actually pose a threat to a MEC Trooper. As his response to the looks, he increased the force of his mechanical feet's clanks, making the floor shake ever so slightly, and sending some of the space station's inhabitants scampering away.

Jacob's voice directed at him brought the MEC Trooper attention to the Cerberus operative. "Hey Alexei, you just notice that?" He asked.

"Notice what?" Dmitriyev asked back.

"You see those blue-skinned, tentacle-headed aliens, the asari?" In response, Dmitriyev grunted in indifference, to which Jacob continued, "I just noticed that they don't seem to like your colonel very much."

"Huh," That statement from Jacob managed to completely capture Dmitriyev's attention. "Care to elaborate, Jacob?"

Jacob pushed a drunk volus away from his path before talking, "The asari we've encountered so far had all turned away from Graves' general area; they all gave him dirty looks before walking away, or they just frowned at him before going about their business."

"I don't think he would've minded. He probably hates them back anyway," Dmitriyev countered.

The MEC Trooper's thoughts then wandered to Graves' appearance. From what he's seen and heard from the seven months he'd been with XCOM, Dmitriyev knew that the colonel had always been infamous for his rugged good looks. The scars he had accumulated over the years had only served to further his influence among the female members of XCOM. Even the famous Annette Durand had made a positive remark about his appearance, commenting that he looks a lot like an action movie star, not a hardened military man.

"Do the asari have some kind of aversion to how we humans look?"

Jacob heaved a dry chuckle at Dmitriyev's question. "Nah, I don't think so. They frequently take partners from our own species, and pretty much every other Council species out there. The asari are notorious for their xenophilic tendencies." The former marine stopped to think for a moment before adding, "I don't know why, but they seem to not like having members of their species to take another asari as a bondmate, though."

After an uncomfortable pause, Dmitriyev laughed as well, but with considerably less enthusiasm. "Very funny, Jacob. Aliens can't hook up with-"

Suddenly, the MEC Trooper stopped walking. He faced Jacob, slid his faceplate up and locked the Cerberus operative in a stare. "You… you must be joking." He emphasized every word.

"What?" Jacob confusedly asked, before realization hit him. "Oh, that." He chuckled nervously. "Ehem, uh… I think this isn't the right time to discuss this, Alexei. Just remember that people are a lot more open-minded in this universe than yours. The human race here have been a spacefaring race for decades now, and yours is still trying to fight back an invasion."

Dmitriyev kept his wide-eyed stare at Jacob for several seconds before sliding his helmet's faceplate back down and walking forwards. He felt that there are no words to be said. This must be some kind of sick, aberrant joke.

* * *

**Machine Hangar, Mercenary Advanced Forward Operating Base, Kima District, Omega, 09:56 TCUT**

Conagher's jaw was on the verge of dropping slack. In front of him and his teammates are several rows of YMIR mechs and attack gunships. Earlier, Shepard had made plans to sabotage the Eclipse, Blue Suns and Blood Pack mercs from the inside before making their charge to Archangel's position. Now, they are in a wide-open hangar filled to the brim with busy mechanics and inactive combat machinery.

"Holy shit, that's definitely _a lot more_ than what I was expecting, but we should do what we can." Shepard relayed through his radio channel. "If one of the mechanics leave their posts for some reason, we should move in for their charges."

The ground team tried their hardest to blend in with the freelancer crowd, which apparently amounted to half a hundred enthusiastic, under-armed wannabe soldiers. The mercs must _really _hate Archangel if they bothered to hire a small army to storm the bridge he was guarding.

In a few minutes, Conagher, Miranda and Shepard had sabotaged a total of three YMIR mechs and four gunships, as the mechanics in charge of the aircraft were significantly more lazy and laidback. The mechs will attack the mercenaries and freelancers instead of Archangel and Shepard's team, and the gunships are rigged to explode as soon as they hit a certain altitude.

Conagher was in the process of rigging a gunship, when a batarian mechanic suddenly caught up to what he was doing.

"Hey! That's Tarak's personal gunship, you can't touch-"

Thanks to Claudia's quick draw with a pistol, the batarian's head was separated in two by a relatively silent plasma pistol blast. The freelancers were none the wiser as they continued talking about their plans after they kill Archangel.

"Whew, nice shootin' Tex!" The combat engineer complimented the marksman with a thumbs-up from his tendril's plasma welder, who only gave a nod before disappearing once more. It was only a few minutes before the Blue Sun's leader could be heard shouting over the hangar's intercom.

"Alright, you filthy pieces of shit! Now's the time for you to grab your gear and storm that fucking bridge! You better get moving, 'cause if Archangel's still not dead yet, I'll have anyone who's still alive out there shot when the main force arrives!"

In a chaotic mockery of military discipline, the freelancer crowd simultaneously drew their weapons and formed themselves into squads before mobilizing.

Shepard and his team were the most well armed and armored, so the freelancers naturally waited for them to go over the barrier as the first to be targeted, but firstly, they have to cross an open area, where Archangel might as well be waiting for an unlucky person to move through.

The commander groaned in annoyance. These freelancers sure know how to talk big, but their courage immediately evaporates when the time to act comes. "Section Foxtrot, cross the open and draw Archangel's fire. We'll follow you once he reloads."

Heinrich blinked affirmative over the radio. "Roger, sir." He sighed to himself. "Sometimes, I hate my size…"

* * *

**Sniper Perch - Second Level, Archangel's Base, Kima District, Omega, 10:34 TCUT**

Garrus' mandibles clicked in curiosity. He was under attack in one second, but in another, the mercs just suddenly disappeared. The bridge he had his scope hovering on lie empty, with only the piles of dead bodies he made as its occupants. The turian rubbed his eyes; he was feeling his exhaustion to set in. He nearly laughed at his dire situation. It won't be long before he joins his fallen comrades.

When his vision cleared up, Garrus looked over his scope again. What he found made him grimly contract his mandibles in the shape of the turian equivalent of a smile. He pulled the trigger, like he had done countless times before.

Before the big, bulky armored bastard could even take three steps in, Garrus' bullet had already lodged itself in his shoulder. To his eternal surprise, the freelancer only flinched in pain before continuing his run. Garrus fired again, and this time, his bullet made a direct hit to the freelancer's helmet.

An ineffectual-sounding _ping _was the only effect, indicating that the round pierced the freelancer's shields. However, the freelancer continued running forwards like he wasn't dead. Garrus shook his head quickly; he realized that indeed, the freelancer _wasn't _dead. Whatever he was wearing, it must be the most effective form of anti-projectile armor known to the galaxy.

The turian was about to eject his overheated thermal clip, but before he could even move his rifle, a forceful blow suddenly threw him back. He whipped his head to his hands and found that his rifle had somehow broken into several pieces by some energy projectile.

"Spirits…" He muttered as he examined his destroyed rifle with an impressed smirk on his face. It looks like the mercs have finally hired the proper soldiers to finish the job.

With renewed resolve, Garrus drew his assault rifle and trained it downrange.

* * *

"_Der'mo_…" The commander faced Claudia, who was about to take her turn to move across the open field. "You said you could disable his rifle, not destroy it! He doesn't have anything to defend himself with, now!"

"Apologies." The markswoman plainly said before activating her cloak and moving out.

Shepard shook his head before doing the same.

* * *

Garrus kept the trigger on his assault rifle held down as a veritable tidal wave of freelancers rushed the bridge he was guarding. He preferred to use his sniper rifle, but he had no choice in the matter. His movements and actions could be summed up with 'fire, fire again, take cover, reposition, fire again, reload, and repeat'.

Suddenly, strange sounds that resembled booming energy discharges echoed behind the freelancer's positions, just behind the barricade. Green lights could be clearly seen, and blood-curling screams of krogan and vorcha could be heard. The freelancers stopped their advance completely, and even Garrus stopped firing to behold the lights.

Before the freelancers could go back to their jobs, however, Garrus spotted a tiny, unimportant-looking object being thrown from behind the barricade, into the freelancer's ranks. He zoomed in on his Vindicator's scope on the object.

One of the freelancers picked it up, displaying it to his teammates. What happened next made the turian look away in revulsion at the freelancer's fate: the object in his hand exploded, unleashing massive shards of serrated spikes in an absurdly large circular radius. The poor soldier holding it was literally torn into bloody chunks, so were seventeen other freelancers who were unfortunate enough to stand near him. The rest of the freelancers suffered varying injuries, ranging from a spike to the forehead, to a small splinter to the knee. Most of them were too surprised at what transpired to do anything, but the smarter ones repositioned to cover their now exposed flank from their new enemy, a six-man squad of heavily equipped, plasma-totting troopers.

It was of no use, however. The new arrivals mowed down the freelancers like Russian terrorists in an airport. Plasma fire ripped through their flesh and armor, completely ignoring their shields, as they were not meant to protect against directed energy weapons.

Garrus couldn't stop himself from chuckling at the fate of the freelancers. He zoomed in even further and found out that among the newcomers, a familiar figure in a suit of winterized N7 armor stood, directing his troops and contributing his fire. He was about to sigh in relief, when something hard smashed him at the back of his helmet. He lashed back, sending a freelancer behind him sprawling. Willing away the darkness creeping in his vision, the turian prepared himself for a close-quarters fight.

* * *

**Mekaplag Bridge, Kima District, Omega, 10:36 TCUT**

A freelancer ran towards her with a shotgun, but Claudia saw him coming. A single plasma pistol shot to the forehead reduced his head into a smoking ruin. Another tried to single her out with his own sniper rifle amidst the chaos, but the markswoman's augmented eyes had already spotted her would-be attacker. Pulling out her ISIK, she overcharged the blast and found the results to be simply overkill, the man's torso was blown away, while his limbs remained as they were.

"Checkmate!" Heinrich called Claudia with her squad nickname through the radio. "The package is in trouble, get up there and assist! We'll deal with the ones on the bridge, this is Rook, over and out!"

The markswoman dodged a rifle's stock aimed at her head, and lashed out with her pistol, knocking her freelancer attacker flat on the ground. She immediately made a sprint to the package, and prepared to jump.

After taking a deep breath, Claudia jumped two stories, landing on top of a freelancer. She finished him off with a quick snap of her pistol before clearing the room of other freelancers in three seconds flat, leaving only a stunned Archangel alive.

"You just… jumped, like that?" He disbelievingly asked. "And you just killed-"

"Not the time. Cover my rear." Claudia holstered her pistol once more and drew her ISIK, taking up a firing position on the turian's sniper perch. With the advantageous view that Archangel's perch provides, the markswoman picked off any freelancer she could get her scope on, their shields and armor useless against her rifle.

Archangel grunted as he contributed his assault rifle to the human markswoman's fire. Every once in a while, he would highlight an important target, and before he knew it, that target lies dead, a smoking hole in their chests. _She's making my job look easy_. The turian thought, before repeating his earlier actions, scoring a few kills himself.

Before long, the freelancers had either been killed off, or had retreated. The bridge lies in ruins, piles and piles of bodies littering it. Shepard and his team checked over their equipment before heading to the second floor, where Archangel and Claudia are.

The commander had Conagher blast the malfunctioning door open with his alloy cannon. Behind the door were Claudia, who was still sniping, and Archangel, who appeared to be giving spotter support to the XCOM markswoman.

The turian mercenary turned his head after hearing the loud noises. He stood up and walked over to greet Shepard.

"Archangel?" The commander asked, holstering his rifle. "We've been looking for you. I'm glad we got here just in-"

Archangel laughed before taking off his helmet, revealing himself to be Shepard's former spotter, Garrus Vakarian. "Ah, Shepard. I knew you wouldn't stay dead for long."

"Garrus!" Shepard exclaimed. "What in God's name are you doing here?"

"A little target practice," Garrus' trademark arrogance remained intact, it seems. "Keeping my skills sharp."

"You okay?" The commander asked, after seeing the trail of dark blue blood leaking from the back of his head.

"Been better, but it sure is great to see a friendly face. Killing mercs is hard work, especially on my own." He answered.

"Um, do you two… know each other?" Elise interposed.

"Oh, right." The commander gestured to Garrus. "Everyone, this is Garrus Vakarian, he's a hell of a marksman. Him and I go a long way back."

Garrus turned his head to regard the combat medic before returning to Shepard. "Is it just me, or does she sound like Dr. Michel? Is she related to-"

"You know, there's a whole country on Earth that's full of people that speak just like Dr. Michel, Garrus." Shepard informed. "But enough of that, we've got to find a way out of here, with you in one piece."

"Well, we couldn't go back the way you came from," Garrus voiced, slightly irritated. "Even with one hell of a markswoman with you, armor that could stop tungsten-jacketed bullets and plasma-spewing firearms, the mercs are just gonna swarm us in their numbers once we climb that barricade."

The turian walked over to the second floor window. "However, I do have one plan in mind, but it involves staying put."

"We're just going to wait for them to pick us off?" Miranda doubtfully asked.

"Not exactly. I plan on being alive after this. Since this building's such a great defensive position, I suggest we weather the inevitable counterattack, wait for a crack in their defenses, and press that advantage. It's not a perfect plan, but it's a plan."

"If we fight as a team, we can hold them off." Shepard assured.

Garrus nodded. "You've got any spare sniper rifles with you, Shepard? Someone shot mine to pieces, forcing me to rely on my other rifle."

"That would be Lieutenant Vogel's work, Garrus." Shepard gestured to the markswoman, who remained as she was, scanning the bridge. "She doesn't talk much, but she does her job a lot better than most." He handed him his own rifle.

Garrus reluctantly took it. "Yeah, I've noticed. What're you going to use now?"

Claudia suddenly appeared beside Garrus and handed Shepard her sidearms: a spare plasma pistol, two grenade-like contraptions, and another contraption that resembled a hilt.

Heinrich trudged up to the two men. "Before you ask, those two are TM-01 gas grenades, which function just the way it was named," He gestured to the two grenades. "And that one's a CLPN plasma bayonet. Just like it sounds, the CLPN's supposed to be mounted on a rifle, but it could also be used as a close-quarters weapon."

Shepard flicked the CLPN in a reverse-grip before pressing the ignition stud. Immediately, a long, knife-shaped blade of pure plasma materialized, forming the 'bayonet' part of the weapon's name.

"The plasma's contained in a gravitational containment field," The major informed. "The field keeps the blade's shape, but I still don't think touching the blade itself is a good idea. Use it well, commander."

"Where did you find these guys?" Garrus asked, in an impressed, incredulous tone.

Shepard frowned and shook his head, albeit facetiously. "No idea, Garrus. No idea."

* * *

**Omega Marketplace, Hezloch District, Omega, 10:57 TCUT**

A few minutes of walking were spent before Dmitriyev's group stopped at a kiosk, manned by one of the aliens he fought with at Freedom's Progress.

"Hey you," Graves called out to the quarian, who was busy welding metals together. "Alien, you're in charge here, aren't you?"

The quarian turned around. He stared at his peculiar customers for a few fleeting seconds before talking. "He- hello, may I interest you in some salvaged tech? Every credit I spend goes to buying a ticket to get me out of this forsaken rock."

"I'm here to inquire about kinetic barrier modules, and I was told this is just the place to get one." Graves replied, trying hard to keep his tone level.

"I've got just what you need," The quarian replied. "But the prices might not be what you expected."

Graves grunted before accessing the kiosk. Indeed, the prices for three shield modules are eighty percent higher than what Zaeed indicated. "These prices disgust me."

"I wanted to sell for much, _much_ lower, but Harrot's making me sell my goods like that," The quarian said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry about that."

"Who is this 'Harrot', alien?" The colonel asked, with barely contained anger in his tone.

"An elcor merchant." The quarian answered. "He made me swear not to undercut him just because he was here first. If it weren't for him, I would've left this station several cycles ago."

Graves leaned on the counter. "Point me to him."

* * *

Five minutes later…

"Alien, you can set your own bloody prices now." Graves said, just as the quarian turned around.

"What, how did-"

Graves displayed his knuckles, which were stained with elcor blood. "I broke his legs – and his face. And here," The colonel brought up his omni-tool.

A beeping came from the quarian's own omni-tool. He powered it up and found a 'gift' of seven thousand credits in his extranet banking account.

"You just- how the- why did-" The quarian stuttered hopelessly.

"One less alien in this station." Graves stated, as plain as could be. "Get out of here."

The quarian composed himself quickly before speaking to the colonel. "You've been sent by the Ancestors, human. Thank you. I've set the prices on the kiosk to let you take anything you want for free. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to buy my ticket right now, thanks again!"

The alien left his counter, a noticeable spring in his step. Graves shook his head and sighed before accessing the kiosk again, taking all of the things he needed.

Meanwhile, Dmitriyev scrubbed his optics six times already. _I must be seeing things._ He thought. _Damn that cook._

* * *

**Middle Level, Archangel's Base, Kima District, Omega, 11:08 TCUT**_  
_

Heinrich, Miranda and Elise stood with their backs faced with each other. Shepard had earlier ordered Section Foxtrot to go downstairs and defend the building's entrance. Heinrich was meant to be the one to soak up all the damage, while Miranda is tasked with keeping the major's flank guarded, and it was Elise's job to keep the two operatives on their feet while providing small-arms and psionic support.

Hordes of Eclipse mercenaries and LOKI mechs stormed their position, but were ultimately consumed by the proceeding plasma fire from the _Normandy_ ground team. Still, it's as if all members of Omega's Eclipse are tasked with throwing themselves into the grinder, as dozens and dozens of mercs vaulted over the barricade before proceeding to bum-rush the bridge.

"They're sending in the heavy mechs!" Miranda cried out. "Take cover!"

Immediately gunships flew overhead, dropping half a dozen YMIR mechs right on top of the bridge. As was expected, two of the mechs turned rogue, attacking the mercs. The mechs that were not hacked were not programmed to attack their own, so they ignored their malfunctioning brethren and focused on Shepard's strike team.

Elise, seeing her team about to be turned into a crater in the ground by a concentrated barrage of YMIR missiles, used her Gift to will a telekinetic field around the building to existence, redirecting the missiles to explode somewhere else, but mostly just back to the mechs that launched them.

Miranda found herself stunned at the breathtaking display of psionics, but she was already in combat once more after taking a quick recording of Elise's TK field. She found that her biotic abilities make a good synergetic combination with Heinrich's intermittent assaults, whether they might be plasma from his weapon, or attacks made by his mind. Sometimes, the Cerberus operative will biotically lift an Eclipse officer in the air, to be quickly finished off Heinrich's plasma minigun, or the major might force his mind into several targets, causing them to bunch up. Miranda will usually just follow up with a Warp blast.

Heinrich, whose psionic capabilities were mostly focused on dealing heavy mind-destroying damage to a single target, had mainlyresorted to just spraying bursts of plasma fire while the field lasted, only using his own psionics when the situation called for it. Mercs were cut down as they ran, and mechs, both heavy and light were reduced to piles of smoldering scrap metal, to be used as cover by the advancing Eclipse mercs… if they even bothered to take cover _at all_.

Soon, the Eclipse horde was trimmed, ending with the destruction of the bridge. Heinrich had earlier spotted a salarian among the crowd, issuing orders and swearing loudly. The major figured he was an officer, so he mind-controlled the salarian, made him shoot his confused lieutenant at the back of her head and manipulated his pistol hand to point the Carnifex it was holding at its owner's forehead.

"That's the last, Sections." Shepard's voice had a slight echo on the radio. "Regroup on me upstairs."

Section Foxtrot and Section Sierra congratulated each other briefly.

"I think we just permanently exterminated the Eclipse presence in Omega, Shepard." Garrus declared enthusiastically. "I think I saw Jaroth having a breakdown; he shot his asari lieutenant before shooting himself."

"That would be Major Fischer's work, Garrus." Shepard replied, gesturing to the Heinrich. "He's my new squad's heavy weapons specialist and Category Beta Minus psionic… whatever that means."

"Beta Minus Psionic?" Garrus asked looking Heinrich over. "That some kind of code word where you work for?"

Heinrich nodded. "I can either manipulate minds to my bidding, or I can burn them out. But enough about that. I remember you taking shots at me a couple of times…" The major muttered. "The first shot went right through my armor. It's still lodged in my shoulder, I think. Good thing my helmet held up when you shot me a second time."

Shepard laughed. "Don't let his size and expertise fool you, Garrus. He's probably the only one of my new crew – besides maybe Conagher – who _won't_ mind your presence."

"What do you mean?" The turian asked.

"Let's just say that from where these soldiers came from, the aliens there are in the process of an invasion of their planet." Miranda answered as she replaced her overheated clip. "One thing's for sure: they're a _long_ way from home."

Suddenly, the building the _Normandy _team was in shook from an explosion going off underground. It appears that the bombs that the mercenary leaders mentioned earlier had breached the tunnels that Garrus sealed off.

Garrus brought up his omni-tool and looked through his security cameras in the lower levels of his fortified hideout. "Damn it, they've penetrated the lower levels." He triggered the cameras to revert to their original role: being armed security turrets.

The turian marksman's mandibles folded into a smirk as he watched the first wave get torn to ribbons before the cameras were eventually overwhelmed by vorcha and krogan auxiliaries. "Well, they'll have to use their brains eventually. You'd better get your team down there, Shepard. The bridge might be down, but they might try to crawl their way towards the building. I'll make sure that doesn't happen."

"How about I leave two of my men here?" The commander suggested. "You won't last very long if we leave you here all by your lonesome. Besides, I've got plenty of people to keep me company."

"You sure?" Garrus asked. "Who knows what you'll find down there, waiting for you to show up."

Shepard nodded confidently. "Claudia will stay with you. I'm leaving Conagher behind to guard your six."

Garrus looked over the markswoman, who appears to be still glued to her rifle, looking over the destroyed bridge. He then examined the combat engineer, who was in the process of getting a detailed biological scan of a fallen salarian merc with his omni-tool.

He nodded, satisfied. "Thanks Shepard. You better get going."

The commander gave a nod before leaving the room, with his team in tow.

* * *

**Sniper Perch - Second Level, Archangel's Base, Kima District, Omega, 11:17 TCUT**

After a few minutes of monitoring the destroyed bridge for any mercenary activity, Garrus got bored. He opened up a comm channel to the commander. "Shepard, what's your status down there?"

A burst of automatic weapons fire and explosions were clearly heard as the commander talked, "We're knee deep in vorcha and krogan, but it's nothing we couldn't hand- Miranda, krogan charging, eleven o'clock!" the channel cut off abruptly.

Garrus sighed before looking over the XCOM markswoman, who hasn't moved an inch so far.

"You don't talk much, don't you?"

Claudia turned her head to look at the turian.

Through his observation, Garrus noted that Claudia's helmet is designed to look as sleek and streamlined as possible, with two small respiration nozzles on each side as its main distinguishing feature, as well as a slit-like dark blue visor for vision, which is slightly darkened from view by the hood she was wearing. Why the markswoman chose to wear a hooded cloak over her armor eluded Garrus. He assumed that she had the same reasons as Shepard did.

She stared at him for several seconds, as if she was going to say something. However she only shook her head before going back to surveying the bridge.

"Yeah," Garrus did the same. "I figured."

Suddenly, Claudia's rifle discharged a bolt. Garrus was about to ask if she was getting as bored as he was, but then the dying scream of a krogan was heard. Stowing away his words for now, Garrus scoped the battlefield again, and found several squads of combined Blood Pack and Blue Suns mercs with sniper rifles encroaching on their position. Apparently, the mercs decided that if they can't bludgeon their way to Archangel because of a collapsed bridge in their way, they're going to snipe him down from his hiding place.

A barrage of gunfire forced Garrus and Claudia to head down and wait for the snipers to reload. It appears that this battle's underway to become an old-fashioned sniper duel. Unfortunately for Garrus and his team, the snipers seem to have access to tactical cloak modules. It would be lethal to stay out of cover for more than half a second.

"Darn, I've got a shotgun! Can't do anythin' at this range!" Conagher shouted to his two comrades as he ducked behind cover. "Well, 'sides that can highlight these invisible targets for you two with my combat scanners – but I'm gonna need to get closer!"

"Do it!" Garrus shouted back as he switched to his assault rifle. "We'll cover you!"

The combat engineer commanded his tendril to fold itself into a compact position before moving out, closer to the enemy snipers. As expected, despite the suppressive fire that his teammates provided, more than a few marksmen thought that firing on him was a good idea. Conagher literally dived for dear life as he approached the nearest piece of cover. "Alright, I'm in. I'm highlighting as many of them as I could, should be easier for ya to shoot 'em!" As soon as the engineer stopped talking, he felt a sharp lance of pain on his chest. It seems that some of the snipers penetrated his armor. He coughed up some of his blood before doing his job.

Garrus, after waiting for another wall of small-arms fire to stop coming, looked through his scope and found his invisible targets highlighted with a bluish-green outline. He quickly picked a solitary merc off, startling his companions who were not expecting their prey to actually see them. Claudia utilized this opportunity to snipe several of the mercs down in extremely fast motions, before she was forced to stop and take cover, as her ISIK needed time to cool off.

Impressed by her skills, Garrus whistled after watching the markswoman pull off the famous 'In The Zone' sniping technique. Even the most precise and deft-handed snipers in the Hierarchy had difficulties executing the technique, and yet, Claudia perfectly pulled it off like she had done it multiple times.

While they waited for the enemy marksmen to stop firing, Garrus chose to speak up, "Wow, you make me and Shepard look bad. Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

"Classified." Was Claudia's reply. It was a surprise that she even spoke at all, but Garrus took it as a sign that she's slowly getting along with him.

"Huh, I didn't see you shoot any of them in the head." The turian marksman observed. "You _might_ not be as good as you think…" He tried to bait her to talk some more.

Instead, he only got an opaque glare from Claudia's hooded helmet. She promptly went back to sniping when the opportunity presented itself.

Garrus shook his head. He was about to reposition so that he could get a clearer view of the bridge when Conagher's voice entered his channel. "Hey uh… guys? I think I need a little help here. I think one a' them bullets done pierced my armor..."

The turian blinked green, "Hang on, I'm sending the lieutenant to you." He turned at Claudia's general direction, but she's already gone. Only a faint shimmering in the air was the only indication of her presence.

Garrus observed as the shimmering proceeded to run towards Conagher's position unharmed. A second later, he found himself shocked and horrified as he watched Claudia's invisible form tossing what seems to be a grenade to her wounded teammate's position. Strangely, Conagher didn't seem to make an effort to get out of the grenade's way, he must've not noticed.

_Remember, Vakarian! _The turian mentally scolded himself. _You can never fully trust anyone except for Shepard. Shame, she had such a good aim, too._ He didn't think about warning the combat engineer about his apparent death, as it was probably too late anyway. Garrus prepared to shoot Claudia down, but before he could, the grenade went off.

Instead of the fiery demise that Garrus predicted, Conagher didn't die, as he appears to have disappeared under a shower of bluish-white particles. The combat engineer's faint blue outline could be hazily seen making his retreat from the frontlines. Admonishing himself once more for being too paranoid, the turian went back to finishing the remaining mercs off.

* * *

**Garage - Lower Levels, Archangel's Base, Kima District, Omega, 11:32 TCUT**

Heinrich clamped an ironclad grip around the neck of one of the vorcha engaging him in melee. With a quick twist, the struggling alien went limp, his neck having been permanently restructured. Quickly, he dodged a shotgun stock aimed at his head by a nearby Blood Pack krogan. Before the unholy hybrid of a Muton Berserker and a Thin Man could recover from missing his attack, the major smashed his armored shoulder into the krogan's faceplate, giving it a good-sized dent. The alien was sent staggering away, and Heinrich was quick to use this opportunity to throw the vorcha clawing his way on his back to the ground.

The impact the vorcha made on the ground was so strong, that a small crater was formed. Before he could stand up, Heinrich gave the alien a single stomp to the head, squashing it like an insect. Before long, the krogan was on the major again, swinging its shotgun at him like an improvised club. Heinrich kept calm. He knew that an angry combatant is an irrational combatant. His earlier extranet searches yielded information that suggests that a krogan is apparently a little stronger than a standard Muton, but fortunately for him, Heinrich was augmented to be 54.443% stronger than a Muton, which was significant for a human. If there's one thing that XCOM's scientists do with excellence that isn't reverse-engineering tech, it's _improving _reverse-engineered tech.

The lizard swung his shotgun, and Heinrich stood his ground to brave the attack. The weapon made contact with his helmet, which only served to disorient the major a little. The krogan continued hammering at the major, landing blow after blow without intention of relenting. This time, Heinrich actually felt that he might lose if he didn't fight back, so he braced himself for another blow, sidestepped the next and delivered his own punch, disorienting the krogan. Continuing his retaliation, Heinrich landed two heavy-handed clouts to the alien's faceplate once more, with enough force to kill an average human being, as evidenced by the sickening cracks that were made when his punches connected. The alien reeled back, howling in agony. He was dazed, but it didn't stop him from going berserk once more when he gained his footing, locking the major in an overpowering hold after delivering no less than four hard-hitting strikes to the major's head and torso.

Heinrich flinched and buckled as the alien tried to bring him to the ground. The extranet was right; a krogan is significantly stronger than a Muton. Now would be a good time to use his psionics, he thought, but he found his mind already spent after manipulating several other krogan to shoot themselves and inducing panic among the vorcha.

Eventually, the reptilian alien succeeded. Heinrich was thrown to the ground after a grueling test of strength. His muscles felt like they were being eaten away by fire, but he was only caught off-guard. Now, he knew just how capable a krogan is. The alien roared in incoherent rage before he tried to stomp the major like he did with the vorcha, but Heinrich was quicker. He rolled out of the way, stood up and tackled his opponent to the ground. Setting his armor's servos to overdrive, Heinrich proceeded to repeatedly pummel the krogan's faceplate in.

Heinrich's opponent snarled and growled at him as he continued his assault with his servo-enhanced Titan gauntlets. Every strike he made always created cracks and dents on the krogan's armor, if not outright breaking each piece he struck. The alien tried to muscle his way out of his situation again by dealing punches of his own, but Heinrich wouldn't let him the opportunity, he's had enough. Fifteen seconds in, Heinrich slowly relented when the alien finally ceased his desperate flailing, his faceplate has been shattered with repetitive strikes, exposing the krogan's face, which is at this point, reduced to nothing more than an ungainly mixture of bruised flesh, torn pieces of what once been a head crest, and bits of compressed armor. Orange blood is painted all over the floor, like a reminder to the major that he might have done more than what was necessary.

"Shutter secured." A synthesized male voice announced.

The major grimaced at the mess he had made before standing up, popping his neck as he did so. Whenever he found himself locked in melee, using his Snapdragon would've been too awkward to be practical. It was a good thing that he trained extensively in several CQC techniques, but fighting an opponent where his biological structure is drastically different from humans slightly affected his performance.

Shepard had just separated a vorcha from his own head with his plasma knife before emptying four charges of his plasma pistol at a charging krogan. When the mercenary didn't relent, he held his knife in a Harries hold, like he always did when dealing with krogan charges. Like a snake waiting for its prey, the commander waited for the alien to close the distance before swiftly propelling his knife forwards. The weapon had no trouble penetrating the krogan's faceplate, lodging itself deep.

Shepard was holding a grim half-smile as he retracted his blade. Once again, his technique worked to stop a charge on its tracks. Once he knew his position was secure, he checked over his teammates; Miranda appears to be doing fine, besides a minor-looking gunshot wound to her leg, and Elise had just finished off a dying krogan with a single plasma blast. Like Heinrich, the damage she received amounted to nearly a dozen pockmarks on her armor. What caught the commander's attention, however, was Heinrich, who was standing over the corpse of a krogan battlemaster. He walked over to the major.

"You killed a battlemaster all by yourself?" He asked as he viewed the wrecked corpse. "That's pretty damn impressive."

Heinrich detached his weapon from its mag-lock. "That was one of the toughest fights I've ever been to. Even a Muton Elite shouldn't take that hard to bring down."

"Shepard, get back here," Garrus' voice was suddenly heard over the comms. "The Blood Pack's trying to breach the compound!"

"We're on our way, Garrus. Hang tight, Shepard out."

The commander called for his teammates to regroup on him. "Garrus is in trouble. We need to double back to him before the Blood Pack gets through. Let's move."

* * *

**Sniper Perch - Second Level, Archangel's Base, Kima District, Omega, 11:39 TCUT**

Conagher could do nothing but stay under cover as Garrus and Claudia fought off the krogans assaulting their position upstairs. In charge of these aliens is a larger, more heavily armored 'battlemaster'-type krogan, apparently named Garm, as stated by Garrus. This krogan happens to also have these strange powers that Miranda and Jacob possessed, dubbed 'The Force' by the engineer, and officially named 'biotics' by the two Cerberus operatives. Not only that, Garm also regenerates his wounds much faster than an ordinary krogan does, and that only served to further Conagher's fears. A sniper round pierced a weak point in his armor, rendering him useless as his two other teammates fought. He could only do so much as fire a few alloy cannon shards, but his wounds did not help with his wobbly aim.

Suddenly, a charging krogan stopped on his tracks, clutched his head and went berserk on his former allies. He managed to kill a varren and a couple of vorcha before succumbing to small-arms fire. Soon, the vorcha also started going rogue, turning against the krogan.

Conagher squinted under his piece of cover and found Shepard and his team, drawing fire from the Blood Pack, away from Garrus and Claudia. With renewed vigor, the combat engineer joined the fray once more. His wounds will have to wait for later.

Shepard, after disorienting him with a plasma pistol blast, lodged his energy knife deep into Garm's frontal plate. The blade didn't have any trouble penetrating the krogan's plate, but Garm only deemed the injury as minor. The Blood Pack leader blasted Shepard back with a biotic display, before charging the disoriented commander.

Shepard was tackled all the way to a wall, leaving a dent where he impacted it. Garm proceeded to batter the commander as hard and fast as he could with his shotgun. Shepard blocked the raging alien's blows as best as he could, but even with all the upgrades Cerberus has given him, it proved to be insufficient. Garm is truly a freak of nature; his blows felt like they had the same force as being hit with biotic strikes, and considering what Garm is capable of, that might just be the case. After a few agonizing seconds, Shepard finally came up with a plan. He dodged Garm's next strike, rolled away from him and seized his fallen weapon off the floor. Discharging a couple of bolts, Shepard did what most Alliance personnel wouldn't even dream of doing in his situation: do a charge of his own.

The commander evaded a counter-attack from Garm when he finally closed the distance. While the Blood Pack leader was still composing his stance, Shepard capitalized the moment by lodging his plasma knife to the side of Garm's head crest. Once again, Garm only shrugged it off, but by quickly retracting the blade and lodging it at a certain spot in the side of the plate just as quickly, Shepard managed to violently yank the carapace off, revealing a soft, fleshy spot behind the Blood Pack leader's head crest.

This time, Garm screamed in apparent fear at what the commander had done. Capitalizing on his opponent's terror-stricken state, Shepard immediately plunged the knife on the spot he just uncovered. With a wet _slosh_, the energy blade went unopposed as it continued eating away at the krogan's flesh. The alien didn't stop however. He backhanded the commander away and primed his shotgun to finish him off. But before he could do just that, the plasma knife lodged into Garm's head suddenly took on a blueish-white aura before plunging itself even deeper. Garm screamed again, dropping his shotgun as incomprehensible agony overwhelmed his senses. As its final act to the krogan, the knife repeated its actions twice more.

The Blood Pack leader didn't get to utter anything as his limp body crashed to the ground with a thud. Garm was no more. Soon, the same could be said of his comrades.

Shepard looked over his savior, Miranda. She looked spent. "Thanks, would've been dead again if you didn't do that."

The Cerberus operative tiredly nodded at the commander. "It would be best for everyone's interests if you didn't charge ahead towards krogans like that. I wouldn't want to spend a total of four years of my life on you."

The commander holstered his pistol. "It sounded better in my head."

Elise applied a charge of Medmist to Conagher, who was leaning on a wall, bloodied and clutching his shotgun tightly in one hand. "You should feel better now, but you need to get real medical attention as fast as you can." She looked over to Shepard and Miranda in the distance. "Next time, leave the charging to Fischer or Dmitriyev! They'd probably get better results!"

"Thanks for the advice!" The commander cried over the distance, to Elise. "Probably more entertaining to watch, too."

Garrus chuckled at the humans. For a fleeting moment, he was convinced that the danger of his situation is finally over, but he's smarter than that. "Tough bastards." He said as he strode over and kicked Garm's body. "But I've seen worse."

"Only the Blue Suns are left," The commander stated, just after he doused his blade. "Our chances of escaping are much better now. I say we bludgeon our way out while they're still regrouping."

"I think you're right," The turian agreed after replacing a clip. "Tarak's got the toughest group, but nothing like Saren's geth. Besides, he won't be expecting us to meet him head-on and-"

Three gunships painted in Blue Suns colors suddenly did a strafing run of the team's building forcing everyone to drop to the ground and wait the assault out.

Shepard dragged Garrus to cover. "Damn it, where the hell did Tarak get all these gunships?!" The turian asked.

"Don't worry, there's supposed to be seven of these things, but we took out four. Once we finish these gunships off, I think we're free."

Garrus' mandibles formed into a frown. "Nothing's ever that easy, Shepard."

For the next few minutes, the _Normandy_ strike team coordinated with Archangel to repel the mercs rappelling into the building. Some of them even climbed the fallen bridge just to get closer to their quarry. Still, without any support from the last two mercenary companies, the Blue Suns died just like any other. If only they actually utilized squad tactics instead of mindless rushing, they would've actually caused some damage.

After the last of the mercs were shot dead, Garrus noted that the last gunship seems to be missing. The other two were shot down by concentrated plasma fire combined with psionics, but the third abruptly disappeared while the gunfight raged on.

Of course, just when the turian finally thought about letting his guard down, the gunship inexplicably appeared right in front of the window. "Archangel!" Tarak's rage-filled voice filled the air as he unleashed his gunship's mass accelerator cannons into Garrus. "You think you can screw with the Blue Suns?!"

The turian marksman flinched and buckled as bullets hammered on his armor. He barely managed to drag himself into cover, just as Tarak armed an ML-77 missile. Before Garrus could reposition, the missile was already in the air, streaking right to him.

The missile made a direct hit to the right side of Garrus' head, sending him flying into the air, landing on the ground with a hard _thud_. He lay still and unmoving as dark blue blood pooled on the floor underneath him.

That action was to be Tarak's last, however. Before the missile even managed to harm Garrus, the gunship that fired it had already been set upon by the _Normandy _strike team's weapons. Like a pack of wolves on a defenseless deer, the gunship was thoroughly blasted apart, with only tiny pieces of it being the only indicator that it existed at one point.

Immediately after, Shepard was at his old friend's side, frantically checking himself over for spare medi-gel. Elise beat him to it, though. She practically emptied a whole Medmist canister on to Garrus. However, there was very little effect to stem the bleeding through the turian's ruined face. Garrus remained conscious, but he could only moan and gurgle at his predicament.

* * *

**Omega Lower Levels, Gozu District, Omega, 11:54 TCUT**

Dmitriyev examined an old, beat-up Lancer assault rifle. The weapon once belonged to a foolish mugger, but in his current dismembered, mangled state, he won't be using it anymore.

The sweeper scanners built inside his eyes noted that despite obvious differences in build and appearance, the Lancer – and by extension, all projectile-based weapons carried by everyone – function a little bit like the XCOM's own alloy cannon designs.

The Lancer shaves off its 'bullets' from an internal block of metal before accelerating the tiny, grain-sized projectiles to a speed lethal enough to kill, using advanced (but unknown to the MEC Trooper, as of yet) technology and magnetic forces. The standard alloy cannon also had an internal block of metal as its ammunition source, but with machined shards of Salazarite alloy as its projectiles. However, the alloy cannon doesn't have anything to accelerate its shards with, but the gun overcompensates with the sheer stopping power it provides. In the days of old, there had even been confirmed reports that an alloy cannon _can_ destroy Mk. I Sectopods with just two well-aimed shots, especially in the hands of a Ghost-wearing assault specialist.

"Hey guys," Jacob had his hand on his ear, as if he was receiving messages through his radio. "Shepard says that we should regroup at the _Normandy_'s docking bay. He says he's got Archangel, but he's pretty seriously injured. He might not even live to see tomorrow."

Dmitriyev heaved an apathetic huff. "If he dies… he dies."

Graves couldn't agree more than the MEC Trooper. "What a shame."

* * *

_A/N: Whew, this one's a hard-to-write one. I think I might've made this chapter too long. _

_Note: There used to be a paragraph above, detailing my plans to create fillers after every mission, but I deleted it because I changed my mind. It's not a very good game plan. _

_Also, I've been thinking about how plasma weaponry (or any energy-based weaponry, really) just go through kinetic barriers or something. This means that essentially, Shepard's having it really easy by having the perfect anti-shield technology at his disposal. In order to remedy that, I've decided to make every mission as challenging to Shepard's team as possible. For example. in a normal ME game, in Archangel's recruitment mission, you just face off with a bunch of mercenaries in their dozens, a single YMIR mech, and Tarak's gunship. Here, I've made the mercs into an army._

_Finally, I'd like to say that I found myself lacking when trying to come up with appropriate technobabble for the situation, so excuse me if I just mashed some random scientific words together that don't make any sense. More often than not, I'll just try to avoid technobabbling altogether. Anyways, have fun with this chapter. Thanks a lot._

_As an added note, for convenience's sake, Medkits work on aliens. ANY sort of aliens, even those with dextro-based build. I can't be bothered to come up with pointless, boring handwaves. _


	4. Interlude: Dossiers

**Interlude: Dossiers**

* * *

02/19/17

To: Dir. Maxwell E. Creed, Commander of XCOM

Sir, I've heard that you're trying to form two new squads with the intention of making them work together as a more flexible and versatile alternative to just having a single squad in a single Skyranger sent on missions. As it's my job, I've taken the liberty of having talks to the twelve volunteer operatives you've rounded up. Even with me being saddled up with my day-to-day routines in order to keep our operations running smooth and discreet, I've managed to compile dossiers on each (just nine, really. See below) of them. Here they are, sir:

Note: Some of your operatives are quite literally doing their first day at XCOM HQ, or we simply don't know much about them, so information on them is kind of minimal.

* * *

Delta 'Xenobane' Squad

* * *

**Operative's Name:** Michael 'Shallow' Graves

**Nationality:** British

**Official Title:** Colonel, C: A-

**Recruited From:** Special Air Service, Task Force 042

**Position in Squad:** Squad leader, assault specialist, tactician, anti-Berserker, anti-Ethereal, attack psionic, Meld trooper

**Appearance:** Colonel Graves stands at 6'3, weighs 195lbs, and has Meld-altered red eyes and dark brown hair. Graves possesses three large adjacent scars that stretched from his left cheek right down his jaw, two smaller ones on his left temple, and the largest one running vertically over his right eye. Furthermore, he is missing the tip of his ring finger.

**Biography:** Graves was born and raised in the city of Leeds, in the UK. His father is a career military man, and his mother worked as a court stenographer. After his 19th, birthday, the young Graves enlisted in the British Army, and saw his first engagement during the pacification of a certain Middle Eastern country thirteen years ago. In addition, Graves served briefly as a guard to a numbers station in a hidden underwater facility, where he developed a fear of sharks.

Graves first encountered operatives of our organization when he was found alone and heavily injured in the Calderdale countryside, which was where Task Force 042 was last seen alive. It was a well-kept secret that the colonel had been engaged in a relationship with another Task 042 member: Sergeant First Class Chloe Parkes•. Shortly after he was given medical treatment, he was recruited into XCOM after one of our agents had a look at his service record. He has been observed to harbor extreme anti-alien views. Furthermore, Graves was discovered to be a strong bearer of the Gift a few months ago, and was accordingly classified as a C: A-.

**Personality: **Graves is shown to be extremely resentful to anything concerning Ethereals and their allies, but especially Chryssalids••. However, he seems to actively try in getting to know his squad, and has already made friends with most of his future squadmates, especially Captain Bouchard. He doesn't seem to like his squad's tech expert, Lieutenant Conagher, though.

• - Security footage shows Graves and Parkes holding hands when alone, and both make frequent excuses to slip off somewhere, with both disappearing at the exact same time. Veeeeery suspicious, sir.

•• - This might get problematic in the future. His hatred can lead him to make thoughtless, irrational decisions. You and I both know that a bad decision at a bad time can be disastrous, commander.

* * *

**Operative's Name:** Elise 'Doc' Bouchard

**Nationality:** French

**Official Title: **Captain, C: G+

**Recruited From:** N/A, civilian medical doctor

**Position in Squad: **Second-in-command•, medic, fire support specialist, defensive psionic, Meld runner, Ethereal-dampener

**Appearance:** Captain Bouchard stands at 5'11, weighs 130lbs, has natural green eyes and brown hair. Bouchard typically wears reading glasses, but I told her to replace them with our newly implemented 'sweepers'.

**Biography: **Bouchard was born in Washington DC in the United States, and was raised in the city of Lyon, in France to a wealthy family of entrepreneurs. Her mother was killed in a skydiving accident, and as a result, Bouchard's father was too grief-stricken to function as a parent. Her uncle, who worked as a doctor at Claude Bernard University Hospital, and her aunt, who worked as a police officer were the ones who took it upon themselves to raise the young Bouchard, as they cannot bear their own child. Soon, after her aunt took her for a round at her workplace's shooting range, Bouchard learned that she was a crack shot with a rifle.

Contact with XCOM operatives was achieved when Bouchard's workplace was attacked by extraterrestrial forces looking for people to abduct. Dr. Bouchard defended herself and her patients with a dead serviceman's assault rifle before Lieutenant Maxson and his squad•• arrived to relieve her. The doctor was recruited into XCOM after she was requested to, when Maxson saw her potential as a combat medic. Apparently, Dr. Vahlen holds strong suspicions that Bouchard might possess the Gift, and Vahlen's rarely wrong about something, so I suggest that Bouchard be posted for a second-in-command role in Delta Squad, serving under Graves.

**Personality: **Bouchard is an approachable, serene sort of individual, but she seems to be easily flustered at times, and is shown to act irrationally when angered or pressured. However, I still think this woman is most likely the most level-headed person in this squad, sir.

• - Suggestion only. Your choice, commander.

•• - Captain Maxson commands Orion Squad.

* * *

**Operative's Name: **James 'Jim' Conagher

**Nationality: **American

**Official Title: **Lieutenant

**Recruited From: **Academi (PMC)

**Position in Squad: **Engineer, Ethereal tech expert, assault specialist, anti-Ethereal, support specialist, Meld Trooper

**Appearance: **Lieutenant Conagher stands at 5'9, weighs 190lbs, has blue (natural) and red (artificial, cybernetic) eyes, natural black hair and is bald. Conagher has made it a habit to make his armor look as beat up as possible, his reasons being that if the aliens see how rusted he looks like, they'll underestimate him. He has also been issued with one of our 'Handyman' combat-engineering servo-arm, which he had programmed to have a rudimentary mind of its own.

**Biography: **Conagher was born and raised in Texas, in the US. It was notable that the boy was found to have genius-level intellect, just like his father. His father worked as a private military contractor in Academi (formerly Blackwater) as a combat engineer, just like his son. Conagher, who was well known as a 'daddy's boy' in the neighborhood he lived in, had made it his life's mission to follow his father's footsteps as much as possible, to the chagrin of his mother, who liked her son to become a lawyer like her. The young Conagher studied in the exact same way his father did in college and studied for multiple degrees at once, thereby earning himself a ridiculous amount of college degrees in such a short time. Even I find this guy unbelievable. Seriously, fourteen degrees? I could barely keep up with _one_ degree back then.

Conagher was found by XCOM recruiters• looking for 'smart'•• people to give roles to. His company was paid a total of 200 credits to allow the lieutenant a place in XCOM. Soon after, Conagher immediately went to augmenting most of his body with crude cybernetic implants. In fact, our scans often mistook him for a MEC Trooper. To Vahlen's great disappointment - and my great relief, Conagher was found to not possess the gift.

**Personality**: The lieutenant is _nice_. Too nice, in fact, that I find it disturbing. He's frequently asking everyone about their day, or asking if they've got something that needed fixing. Also, in his spare time, he plays the guitar, hoping that ladies find him attractive. However, it's well known around the base that Conagher shares Vahlen's enthusiasm about the scientific benefits of an alien invasion. He even sawed off his (perfectly functioning) right hand for a mechanical replacement. Also, he likes playing video games in his spare time, which is pretty much most of the time.

• - Operative Koehler and his cohorts.

•• - People who can work as field operatives and scientists/engineers at the same time.

* * *

**Operative's Name: **Alexei 'Tin Can' Dmitriyev

**Nationality: **Russian

**Official Title:** Sergeant, MEC

**Recruited From: **_Воздушно-десантные войска_ (Russian Airborne Troops)

**Position in Squad:** MEC Trooper, heavy assault specialist, siege specialist, anti-Berserker, anti-Mechtoid/Seeker/Drone/Cyberdisk/Sectopod, close combat specialist

**Appearance:** On his base augments, Sergeant Alexei stands at 6'4, and on his MEC, he stands at 9'7. He has a natural eye color of green, which is now mostly blue, thanks to his implants. His hair has been singed off because of a Heavy Floater's plasma grenade, but records indicate that it was a brownish blonde at one point. As a reward for his exemplary performance in the field, Alexei has been issued a MEC-3 Paladin as a gift after his fifteenth mission.

**Biography: **Alexei was born in the capital of Ukraine, in Kiev, but he was raised in Kirov, Russia. His family was descended from a long line of diplomats and politicians, but the young Alexei scoffed at his father's wishes for him to follow his footsteps as a politician, and instead enlisted as an airborne paratrooper. As a result of this rebellion, Alexei's family disowned him. But this seems to only drive Alexei to become better at his current job.

Our soldiers had contact with Alexei when his unit was ambushed by an obscene amount of extraterrestrials while out on patrol. Thankfully, our operatives were in close proximity to Alexei's unit's location, which prevented the aliens from eliminating the Russians to the last man. When Field Operative Faucheux found him, Alexei's body is but a shadow of its former self; he was missing both arms and a leg, and his only remaining limb was unsalvagable and infected. Faucheux decided to bring the wounded soldier back to XCOM HQ, where Dr. Shen gave him the opportunity to protect humanity once more, by becoming a MEC Trooper.

**Personality: **Alexei mostly keeps to himself, he's shown to play his own version of Tetris on his suit's interface when he's not doing anything, and he appears to be very loyal to the friends he had made. He seems to resent his family for their actions against him, but he's known to sometimes send a part of his earnings to a certain someone's address in Kirov, and it's known that the Dmitriyev family has fallen on hard times lately, due to suspicions that the father is in collusion with the aliens. He also plays the piano on his base augments.•

• - Not for recreation. He needs to get used to his new limbs.

* * *

**Operative's Name: **Edward Jensen

**Nationality:** Former Norweigian, naturalized American

**Official Title: **Corporal

**Recruited From: **N/A, civilian ex-special forces operative

**Position in Squad: **Sniping specialist, anti-Chryssalid, Meld runner

**Appearance: **Not yet known to me•. I've got too many important things to do than to search up how this guy looks, sorry sir.

**Biography:** Nothing's known yet.

**Personality: **Nah.

• - Jensen is scheduled to appear today, at XCOM HQ. So far, he hasn't shown up yet.

* * *

**Operative Name: **Reilly 'Spook' Denton

**Nationality: **American

**Official Title: **Lieutenant

**Recruited From: **Central Intelligence Agency

**Position in Squad: **Espionage and subterfuge specialist, counter-intelligence expert, covert operations specialist, fire support specialist, close combat specialist

**Appearance: **Reilly stands at 6'0, weighs as much as 140lbs, has natural brown eyes and brown hair. She usually wears her hair in a long ponytail, and usually has a cigarette in her hand. Yep, she's definitely a spy.

**Biography:** The CIA knows about our existence, so they chose to give us one of their best agents as a 'gesture of trust and goodwill'.

However, the agency had also chosen to keep Reilly's details unknown to us. Thus, we know absolutely nothing about her, not even her squadmates. All they know is that she's really accurate with a pistol, really smart behind a computer console, and lethal with plasma knives. They also noted that she seems rather fragile, as she often ends up in the infirmary just because she tripped on her armor.

**Personality: **Reilly would really like it I wasn't writing a dossier about her. Really, I don't know anything about her, sir. She does seem to like fine business suits and sharp briefcases. She doesn't get along with Zhang, because she doesn't like 'criminals'.

* * *

Echo Squad

* * *

Note: Since you already know so much about Claire, Buskirk and Gasebonwe, I'm cutting these dossiers to just include Fischer, Vogel and Li, who you don't know much about on a personal level, sir.

**Operative Name: **Heinrich 'Rook' Fischer

**Nationality: **German

**Official Title: **Major, C: B-

**Recruited From: **_Deutsches Heer_ (The German Army)

**Position in Squad: **Second-in-command, heavy assault specialist, area denial, close combat specialist, Meld trooper, attack psionic

**Appearance: **Fischer's _really freaking tall;_ he towers at about 7'7 and weighs as much as _330lbs out of his armor_. He has Meld-altered bright blue eyes and brown hair. The major also had one large Chryssalid-induced scar that ran from his right temple, his right cheek and over the edge of his mouth, stopping just before his jaw. He's been known to scratch his scar as a habit, agitating it and making it grow larger, so he might look different when you see him.

**Biography: **Born in London and raised in Hamburg, Fischer was born to a family of middle-class businessmen as the middle child. He originally wanted to be like his parents, but Fischer took inspiration from his childhood friend Claudia Vogel's father, who was a decorated war hero. Instead of seeing their child's chosen profession as a negative thing, Fischer's parents actually chose to shrug their shoulders and supported their son in his goal.

Fischer - and by extension, Vogel - made contact with our troops when he assisted Field Operative Wilson's squad• in preventing an alien terror attack underway in Hamburg. Fischer and Vogel were given a six-week furlough by their employers, and Fischer was apparently meeting with his mother and father when the aliens struck.•• Being on vacation, Fischer was only armed with a H&K P8 pistol, but he managed to hold his ground as he provided fire support for Wilson's squad. By the end of the day, Wilson was so impressed at Fischer and Vogel, that she highly recommended the two for a spot in XCOM. Naturally, we could always use more soldiers. Fischer was found out to be harboring the Gift, and was classed as a Beta Minus, thereby earning him the second-in-command role.

**Personality: **Despite his losses, Fischer seems to be just as friendly as Conagher, but not in the same disturbing way. He tries to maintain his calm under fire, and he's slow to anger. So far, the only people I see him not getting along with is Graves, Buskirk and to a tiny degree, Annette. In his spare time, Fischer plays the violin, or he tries to maintain his physique down at the physical fitness facilities in Level Three.

• - The very same Echo Squad I'm writing about.

•• - On that day, his parents were both killed by alien small-arms fire. He seems to cope with drinking, but I don't think it affected his performance in any way, sir. But it might become a problem one day.

* * *

**Operative Name: **Claudia 'Checkmate' Vogel

**Nationality: **German

**Official Title: **Lieutenant•

**Recruited From:** _Deutsches Heer _(The German Army)

**Position in Squad:** Sharpshooter, anti-Chryssalid, anti-Berserker, Meld runner, Meld trooper, covert operations specialist

**Appearance: **Vogel stands at 6'2, weighs 135lbs and has natural blonde hair and Meld-altered, glowing emerald eyes. This woman rarely leaves her Ghost armor, as a result she stays mostly unseen by people, but I could tell that she has a small, neat scar over her nose she acquired from a near miss in a conventional weapons exercise.

**Biography: **Born and raised in Hamburg, Lieutenant Vogel is the daughter of decorated war hero Lukas Vogel. Initially raised to pursue a career in marine biology by her mother, Vogel found that working on a research ship drifting in the middle of nowhere to be too dull for her to endure. After discovering her talent for sharpshooting and stealth, and after taking interest in her father's line of work, Vogel eventually dropped out of college and enlisted along with Fischer in the German Army, where she was stationed in a special operations unit.

Vogel and Fischer were on furlough in Hamburg when it was besieged by extraterrestrials, with the intention of causing as much casualties and panic as possible. Luckily, Colonel Wilson's squad was nearby. Since Vogel insisted on never parting with her rifle, she managed to pick off some of the weaker aliens while leaving the tougher ones for Echo Squad to take care of. Wilson was impressed with the two German soldiers, so the first thing she did upon returning to HQ was to recommend a spot in XCOM for Vogel and Fischer. Sadly, Vogel was found out to be devoid of the Gift.

**Personality:** Lieutenant Vogel is a... peculiar, individual. She's been shown to never converse with anyone in the base besides her fellow marksmen, her commanding officers and Fischer. She seems _extremely_ focused when on field operations, rarely ever talks when not asked to, and hates small talk. However, from what Major Fischer has told me, she also appears to like fine clothes and jewelry. Peculiar indeed.

• - Vogel is scheduled to be promoted to captain after eight months, commander.

* * *

**Operative Name: **Xiao Chen 'Marks' Li

**Nationality: **Chinese

**Official Title: **Sergeant

**Recruited From: **_中国人民解放军陆军 _(People's Liberation Army Ground Forces)

**Position in Squad: **Heavy weapons specialist, Meld runner, area denial, anti-Mechtoid/Seeker/Drone/Cyberdisk/Sectopod, engineer, general tech expert

**Appearance:** Sergeant Li stands at 5'9, and weighs at around 150lbs. She has natural dark brown eyes and black hair. This woman always keeps her hair up in a bun. _Always_.

**Biography:** Born to a simple family in the Xinjiang province in China, Li had to work as hard as the other members of her family in order for her to stay alive. However, Li used most of her earnings to finance her tuition fee for school, to the dismay of her parents, who wanted her to spend her earnings to maintain their family. It's at school where she found her knack for hacking and computing. After graduating college, Li volunteered for duty in the PLA after taking advice from a friend.

In the summer of 2016, in the Guizhou province, an alien abduction attempt was made. Li's unit, who was the first to respond, was decimated. She only escaped alive thanks to the timely intervention of Field Operative Zhang's squad•. Zhang, who apparently knew Li since they were teenagers, immediately tried to recruit his former friend on the spot. After much paperwork and much army officers thoroughly terrified after being threatened with several fusion lances pointed their way, the PLA finally allowed Li to leave the army and enlist in XCOM as a sergeant, where her technological skills will be put to good use.

**Personality:** Li is perpetually happy, but underneath that sunny exterior is a sad, shattered woman•. However, I can say that her competence with a hacking tool far exceeds most of our field operatives, and her skill with suppression fire is above average.

• - Lieutenant Colonel Zhang is in command of Triton Squad.

•• - She has been taking her unit's death quite hard.

* * *

Well, there you have it, commander - nine dossiers on the soldiers you haven't gotten to know yet. It should be easier for you to interact with them if you took the time to read this, but what with all the work you've been doing, I'm not surprised if you even open this message at all, if you don't mind me saying. On a side note, Dr. Shen appears to be satisfied with the surgeries we've given him after he was blasted across the room after a generator exploded right beside him when the aliens attacked HQ. He seems livelier, even. Makes you wonder if giving everyone cybernetics is a better alternative to augmenting them with Meld.

Stay watchful, commander. For we're always relied upon.

From: Bill 'Central' Bradford

* * *

**The Director's Quarters, XCOM Headquarters, November 11th, 2017, 11:01 Universal Time Coordinated**

Creed marked the mail from Bradford as 'read'. He inhaled a long drag from his cigar as he reclined himself on his seat. There is only one thought he had on his mind as he kept smoking.

Where are they now?

* * *

_A/N: __This isn't a real chapter. I was just practicing my speed writing. Thanks to Snioipeh for the idea, though. Oh, and Guest: Yes, except that scout titans aren't in production yet. He does it with reprogrammed Sectopods and cloaked Ghost soldiers._

_13-03-14 EDIT: To all people who read this chapter and are familiar with LoL, I've removed the easter egg. Thank you for your participation! Hope more people get to see the little things I sneaked in in the future._

_14-03-14 EDIT: To those who kept asking me if those (Graves, Conagher, Heinrich, Claudia) augmented with gene mods are wearing the sleeveless versions of the armor they had equipped, the answer is no, in this story at least. The reason is that it's because it's ridiculous. In a game where a Sectoid's lucky plasma pistol shot can blow gaping holes in your Carapace-armored torso, having sleeveless armor just looks absolutely stupid. So that's where XCOM gets all their MEC Troopers from: armless soldiers. Next thing we know, we've got operatives wearing alloy-plated shorts like a certain archeologist-adventurer. _


End file.
